


Someone You Didn't See Coming

by Snapjack



Category: Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Daddy Kink, High School, Light Bondage, M/M, Mild Kink, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 12:30:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12457827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snapjack/pseuds/Snapjack
Summary: “Let’s get one thing straight,” said Tony. “I don’t care how long you were in that coma, you’re not getting top bunk."





	1. Chapter 1

 “Let’s get one thing straight,” said Tony. “I don’t care how long you were in that coma, you’re not getting top bunk. I get off up there, it’s convenient and private and I don’t have to worry about getting ogled by our friendly resident RA-slash-tyrant overlord, _love you Hill!”_ He pitched his voice out towards the hall, where it was caught by its intended target.

“Love you too, Tony,” Maria Hill called back, her tone dry ice. “Pick up your trash out of the hall.”

“Not trash, components,” Tony called back, his eyes not leaving Steve’s. Steve felt his face heat under the shorter boy’s inspection. No one back home looked at Steve like that. Then again, no one back home told you their jerk-off habits within thirty seconds of meeting you, either.

“Clean up your components or they’re going in the trash next time I come round,” called Maria, her voice floating off down the hall.

“She’s bluffing,” said Tony, but his voice cracked, and he darted around Steve to the hallway, where he scooped up his tr—components—in a scattered armful, dropping a lot of it as he shoveled it back into the very small dorm room that Steve was (allegedly) supposed to be moving into. It didn’t look like there would be enough room for Steve. Every horizontal surface was covered with… stuff. Steve wasn’t exactly sure what to call it. Lots of it had wires, and some of it was humming, but nothing was a recognizable **thing** , like an alarm clock or a cell phone. Tony’s stuff was all just… stuff. Steve reached out to inspect what looked like a partially dismantled cordless drill.

“Don’t touch that,” Tony said shortly, brushing past Steve on the way back into the room. “That’s a taser.”

“A what?” Steve said.

“A taser,” Tony said, slowly. “You touch it, it hurts.”

“I know what a taser is,” said Steve. “That doesn’t look like one.”

“Well, it is,” said Tony. “Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, knocks you on your ass like a duck. Half the weight and forty times cheaper than the commercial kind. And you don’t have to have a license to own one of these.”

“Should you?”

“What, have a license?”

“To own one, yeah. If it works like a taser.”

Tony shrugged. “If anyone besides me could figure out how to make one, yeah, sure. Not too worried about that.”  He scooped a large armful of clothes off the lower bunk into an already brimming laundry basket, leaving the bed mostly empty. “So, uh. Home sweet bunk bed I guess.”

“I guess,” Steve said, stepping over the laundry basket to place his backpack on the bed. It looked pretty small next to all Tony’s gear, but after three years of military school, Steve didn’t carry much in the way of personal items.

“So how long were you in that coma for?” Tony asked.

“Long enough,” Steve said.

 

 

“Pssst. Pssssssssssssst. Is it true?”

“Is _what_ true,” Steve said to the kid who was, rather annoyingly, poking the back of Steve’s neck with a pencil point. Normally, this would be an act of warfare. Since this kid was simultaneously tapping Steve’s neck, drumming his fingers on his own desk, joggling one heel on the floor **and** tilting an empty desk in the next row over with his other foot, Steve was gonna go with “undiagnosed ADHD” instead.

“ _You know._ The _coma_ shit. People are saying you were in a real no-shit coma.”

“Mister Barton.” The teacher’s voice was calm, almost eerily mild, but it caused the pencil point to retract from Steve’s neck. “Please be gentle with the furniture, the school can’t afford to replace it this particular century.”

“The tuition’s high enough, sir,” Barton griped, but Steve heard him let the empty desk down on its back legs again.

“That it is, so I should make sure you leave with a good understanding of the Spanish Inquisition and why it sucked,” said the teacher, and Barton endured a halfhearted shower of groans before genially flipping off the class. The teacher, back turned, didn’t react—but as the class settled with an air of comfortable resignation into the day’s reading, Steve noticed the portrait glass covering a photo of Headmaster Fury on the wall above the chalkboard. For a moment he thought he caught his teacher’s bright blue gaze, looking quietly amused, in the reflection of the entire class, and thought he might really be going to like History—then the door slammed open, aqua pebble-glass shattering across the floor, as a boy and a security guard tumbled into the classroom, locked in a violent embrace. The security guard had a fistful of the boy’s messy black hair, and as they fell to the floor, he yanked it backwards—Steve caught a glimpse of corded neck muscles and bared white teeth, and then his History teacher was **on** it, darting right into the center of the fight, deftly avoiding the boy’s wild swings as he prized the two combatants apart. Steve rose to intervene, but his teacher held up one hand—“Don’t! Stay back!”

At that moment, one of the boy’s wild, blind punches connected—with the security guard’s ear. Even Steve flinched at the hollow thud.

“You little SHIT,” the guard bellowed, only to be pulled away from his target—the history teacher was dragging him upwards by the jacket, and continued tugging until the backpedaling guard was hauled completely out of the classroom. Then Steve’s teacher slammed the door behind him, a gesture which might have granted privacy had all the glass not been knocked out of the window. As it was, the entire class heard it when he said, “If you ever lay a hand on one of my students again, _in my classroom_ , Mister Ross, I will use one of Tony Stark’s many confiscated tasers on you until you are drooling onto the linoleum, and then I will teach a class _over your unconscious body_ on the abuse of police force, are we clear on that?”

The security guard’s response was too low to decipher, but Steve caught the trashcan ricocheting across the hallway loud and clear.  The class sat riveted—through the door’s shattered half-window, Steve could see his teacher standing in the hallway, breathing deeply as he watched the security guard leave. Once the guard rounded the corner, he smoothed his tie and came back into the classroom, swiftly kneeling down by the black-haired boy, who was unsteadily trying and failing to sit up.

“Easy there, easy,” he said. “He’s gone and he’s not coming back in here. Rogers.”

“Yessir,” said Steve.

“Get me some cool water from the fountain in the hall. Paper towels from the custodian’s closet next to it. I gotcha,” he said to the boy as he steadied his shoulder. “Hurry up, Rogers.”

Steve found his feet and moved. When he returned with two Dixie cups of icy cold water and a roll of brown paper towels, the injured boy was sitting up, looking embarrassed. “Thanks,” he said quietly as Steve handed him the water.

“Don’t mention it,” said Steve. “I used to have a friend would do this for me.” Abruptly closing his mouth, he began tearing off sections of the paper towel, folding them into dippable points so the boy could clean out the glassy scrape on his elbow. They worked, quietly, together; in the background, Steve could hear his teacher gently redirecting kids to help clean up, sending the Barton kid for a custodian: “Don’t run into Headmaster Fury!” the teacher called after him, then came back over and squatted down next to Steve and the black-haired boy.

“Let’s have a look at that, shall we?” he said mildly, and turned the boy’s arm over. Deep in the scrape, tiny bits of the shattered blue glass still sparkled. Steve watched the boy’s eyes. They never left his teacher’s face. _Abuse_ , thought Steve, and felt a swell of protectiveness.

“This is going to need a nurse to get all the glass out,” said the History teacher, and before Steve could open his mouth to volunteer, said, “Mr. Rogers. Do you think you could walk Mr. Banner here down to the infirmary?” The _in case you run into that security guard again_ , he left unsaid.

Steve straightened up. “Yes, Mr. Coulson.”

 

Walking down to the infirmary, the black-haired boy was quiet, which wouldn’t have been awkward if Steve knew where he was going. But as it stood, this was Steve’s second day in a new school, and the SHIELD campus was a sprawling late-last-century mess of additions and wings set into a steep hillside, so after going down what looked like two levels on the classroom side of campus, only to find himself in the laundry room three floors up on the driveway side, Steve had to admit defeat. He slowed to a stop and the black-haired boy did, too. Under the swelling goose egg on his forehead, the boy’s gaze was amused. “You have no idea where the infirmary is, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Steve admitted. “You?”

“None,” said the boy. “This is only my third day.”

“Well, it’s my second, so you’re one up on me,” said Steve. “I suppose they can’t get too mad at us for getting lost.”

“I suppose not,” the boy readily agreed, and they continued ambling at a more leisurely pace, heading through the laundry room into a corridor marked with mid-century radiation shelter placards.

“Third day, huh,” said Steve. “Where did you come from?”

“India,” said the boy.

“Really? What brought you here?”

“Not my idea,” said the boy, but his tone was more rueful than angry, so Steve chuckled.

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“Yeah, you’re the kid who came in from the military school, right?”

“That’s me,” said Steve, waiting to be asked about the other part of his reputation, waiting to be asked how long he was in that coma for, what it was like, if he remembered anything—but that shoe didn’t drop. The other boy seemed perfectly content not to pry. Steve stopped and stuck out his hand. “Steve Rogers.”

“Bruce Banner.”

That settled, they continued wandering in companionable silence, into a hallway lined with photography darkrooms. Steve stopped to look in at the finished pictures hanging up in the framing room; apparently, the photography students were working on still-lifes. Lots of close-ups of feathers and leaves. Bruce stopped too. “You like art?”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “Not really on that track any more, though.” He switched off the light in the framing room. “Let’s go.”

 

When they finally found the nurse’s office, Barton was already there, sitting on an examination table, swinging his legs and looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. Except for the two wads of bloody cotton stuffed up his nose. “Hey, guys.”

“Heeeyy,” said Steve slowly, stepping inside the nurse’s office. “What happened?”

“Aw, shoelaces,” Barton explained, pointing to his rather extremely unlaced combat boots. Just then, the nurse came back into the room carrying more cotton balls and a roll of adhesive tape—when he saw Rogers and Banner, his face fell. “More of you.”

“Just one of us, actually,” Steve said, stepping aside so the nurse could see Bruce’s arm.

“Holy shniekes,” the nurse said, dropping the cotton balls and tape on the exam table and grabbing Bruce’s arm. “Barton, your nose is gonna have to wait while I do triage.”

“No sweat,” said Clint, nasally. “’Snot like it’s the first time. Heh. Snot.”

“Come here, let me get a look at that scrape under the lamp,” said the nurse, dragging Bruce over to his desk and manhandling him into a chair. “Ooh, that’s nasty. We’re gonna have to get that stuff out with tweezers. It’s probably going to take a while, you should get back to class,” he called over his shoulder to Steve, who was feeling particularly useless in the doorway.

“Uh, okay,” agreed Steve, and turned to leave—then, a thought occurred to him. “Uh, Nurse… Sitwell?” he said, reading off the diploma on the wall.

“Yes?” the nurse said tetchily, by now tweezer-deep in Bruce’s arm.

“I used to set a lot of minor injuries for my… back at my old school,” Steve said. “A bloody nose is no big deal. If you’d let me, I can help get Barton patched back up while you work on Banner.”

“Barton, you cool with that, _mijo_?” said Sitwell, and Barton shrugged.

“Knock yourself out, I guess. What’s it gonna do, make me more handsome?”

“That’s the spirit, Barton,” sang out Sitwell, then: “Aha! Snagged you, you little bastard.” The plink of glass falling into a tin dish, then: “One down, thirty more to go.”

Steve stepped in front of Barton and began carefully folding a new skein of cotton gauze. Barton’s shoulders were relaxed, but his gaze followed Steve’s every move. “So what’re you, like, a commando or something?”

Steve snorted. “Where’d you pick that up?”

“Come on, it’s all over school. You were like in Navy SEAL school or something—”

“Army. I was in a high school run by the Army.”

“Army, Navy, whatever, like one of those places where they make you run five hundred miles a **_day_** —” at this, Steve cracked a smile—“And like, do situps and shit.”

“There were situps,” Steve admitted, tilting Barton’s head back to get a better look at the nose. “Your nose is out of joint.”

“Nah, just always been handsome,” said Barton, looking nervous. “You don’t have to—OW!”

“Sorry,” said Steve. “It helps if you’re not expecting it too much.”

“Yeah, well, that only works if you haven’t had your nose set before,” griped Barton, before letting his hand drop so Steve could take a look. “How’s it looking?”

“Better,” Steve said. “But we should still pack it and tape it.”

“Ugh,” said Barton, but obediently tilted his head back so Steve could finish the job. By the time he was finished, Barton seemed to have forgotten about his earlier line of questioning. “Hey, thanks. Sitwell, am I good to go?”

“Sure, sure, mijo,” Sitwell said absently from the archaeological dig he was making of Bruce’s arm. “Don’t fall on any brass knucks on your way back to class, alright?”

“You got it,” said Clint, already on his way out the door.

“He fell on brass knuckles?” Steve said.

“Who, Barton? Who knows. Shoelaces, banana peels, I tripped over a nun. I just patch ‘em up, man, I don’t ask questions,” Sitwell said lightly. “Time for you to go back to class, anyway.”

Steve stood and made his exit with as much dignity as possible. Once he got out into the hallway, it occurred to him that he’d gotten completely turned around and, once again, had no idea where he was. It was getting to be a familiar feeling.

  

“So I hear Banner had a case of the Mondays in History today,” Tony said casually, as Steve tried to focus on Animal Farm while ignoring the smell of Tony’s… soldering? Was it still soldering, or had the project on the radiator technically crossed the line into welding? Steve snapped back to Tony’s question.

“What? Oh. Yeah. I think he might have been provoked.”

Tony snorted. “No might about it. That Ross guy is an Acme dynamite kit.”

“Yeah, what’s his problem?’

“Short version? Failed back surgery, mounting anger issues, psyched out of the fucking park service and decided to come work with adolescents. Cause that always calms things right down.”

“He definitely shouldn’t be here. You should have seen the way he went after Banner. That guy packs a wallop.”

“Pfft. He’s a two-bit stooge. One of these days he’s gonna blow up at Fury and I’m gonna laugh my ass off.”

“Is everything funny to you?”

“Funny things are.”

“What if he hurts a kid really badly before then?”

Tony spun around in his chair. “Why do you think I spend my spare time making tasers?” He tossed Steve a small, dense object. “Heads-up.”

Steve caught the thing and flipped it over a couple of times. It looked like a steroidal D battery—one end sawn open and covered with a cap of tinfoil and laced copper wire. “It looks different than the one I saw the other day.”

“Yeah well, this is the mark eight,” said Tony. “Wouldn’t be much of an engineer if I didn’t keep improving the design. Try it out.”

Steve pressed the exposed end to his neck. When he came to, Tony was leaning over him in the bunk, thumb prying one of Steve’s eyelids open.

“I meant on me, dickhead, but points for being willing to take one for the team, I guess.”

Steve sat up. “You’re not kidding with those things.”

“Not at all. What’d you expect, a rubber band snap?”

“Sort of,” Steve admitted. “I won’t make that mistake with your tech again.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t piss yourself.” Tony paused, sniffed. “Wait. Did you?”

“Get off,” Steve said.

Tony backed away, and Steve stood, hefting the taser with newfound respect. “So, teach me how to use one of these.”

“Simple. Just find some exposed skin and zap. I haven’t gotten it to go through cloth yet.” Tony sniffed. “That’s coming. Oh, and don’t put it on someone’s eyeball unless they really piss you off.”

“Why, what happens if you put it on an eyeball?”

“I don’t know yet, that’s why you should only do it to people who really piss you off.”

Steve looked at Tony dubiously, but the other boy was already distracted, snatching up a magazine and waving it at the thin white line of smoke that the soldering iron was sending up.

“Shit, come on, help me, Hill told me if I set off the fire alarms one more time this semester she was gonna make me join sports.”

Steve joined Tony under the smoke detector, waving a rolled-up copy of Spin. “Why only this semester?”

“Hill’s a realist, she knows she can’t expect me _never_ to set off the fire alarms,” Tony said reasonably, and then the end of his magazine knocked the soldering iron off its holder. “Shit, grab that?”

Steve carefully pincered the iron and set it back in its holder, but not before it had seared an inch-long divot into the cheap synthetic carpet. The plasticy fibers, melted into a black, gluey mass, emitted a noxious stench—Tony and Steve looked at each other in dismay for one moment, and then the fire alarms went off.

  

“I can’t believe this.”

“One _whole_ semester, Stark. No less. That was our deal.”

“Come on, it wasn’t even like I set anything on fire! It was a false alarm.”

“A deal’s a deal,” Hill said. “Buck up, at least you get to pick.”

“Yeah, from dumb and dumber—Rogers! Come over here!”

Steve walked through the small crowd of rousted-out, grumpy-looking SHIELD Academy students to where Tony stood with Maria Hill, who was brandishing a clipboard. A group of girls with wet hair and facial masks gave Steve dirty looks as he passed, as if he—just by being Tony Stark’s roommate—had been responsible for the fire evacuation. “Yeah?”

“Hill’s making me choose a sport.”

“No, Mr. Stark,” said Maria Hill with a tone of infinite patience, “ _You’re_ making you choose a sport, as per the terms of our agreement this September.”

“Whatever, what I need to know is, which one should I choose?”

“Excuse me?” Steve said.

“I need one without too many practices, ideally one that I can look good doing, and, and this is crucial, no uniforms. I don’t do uniforms. What can I do that is all of those things?”

“Ballet.”

Tony gave him a look of horror.

“OK, scratch that. Can I see the list?”

Maria handed over the clipboard wordlessly, and Steve could swear he almost saw the trace of a smile hiding in her lips.

“Ok, so we can rule out wrestling because of the uniforms—”

“Yes, God, no wrestling.”

“Ditto football, basketball, baseball. Soccer doesn’t really have a uniform, technically, but they have practices twice a day at four and seven—”

“Shoot me.”

“So we’re not picking that, how about crew?”

Tony winced. “I’ve got three exes on crew.”

“Th— _three_ exes? How does that happen?”

“AHEM,” said Hill.

“Nevermind,” said Steve swiftly. “Here. Here’s your sport.” He circled a listed item and passed it back to Hill, who looked at the selection and smiled. “I’ll see you at practice Wednesday at six, Tony. Have a good evening, gentlemen.” She walked off, and Tony turned to Steve.

“Thanks. So, what’d you sign me up for?”

 “Ultimate Frisbee.”

“Ultima—what? _Ultimate Frisbee?”_

“Yep. It’s perfect. Meets twice a week, no uniforms, no helmets, you won’t even mess up your hair.” Steve clapped Tony on the shoulder. “Trust me, it’s fun.”

As he walked off, he heard Tony’s voice behind him. “Wait, are you on the team too?”

“Yup,” said Steve, not looking back. “See you Wednesday.”

 

To Steve’s immense surprise, Tony showed up on Wednesday, ten minutes late and wearing jeans.  He stood at the edge of the field, looking embarrassed and confused, until a foul call gave Steve a chance to jog over and greet him.

“Hey, good to see you. You wanna sub in after the next score?”

“Sure, I guess. What do I do?”

“Well, that’s our end zone. That’s theirs. You wanna throw it to one of ours, in their end zone. No running with the Frisbee, you got ten seconds to throw it once you’ve got it.”

“OK. How do I tell who’s on our team?”

Steve smiled. “It’s shirts versus skins. We’re shirts.”

Tony blinked, and Steve wondered just how little Tony’s parents had ever sent their son outside to play. “OK, give us just a minute to score and then I’ll swap you in for Peter, he’s getting tired.”

The next play went quickly as Steve, distracted by the sight of Tony looking ill-at-ease on the sidelines, missed an easy interception and watched the disc go floating airily into the hands of a visibly surprised Sam Wilson.

“You alright, man?” Sam said, straightening up as his teammates cheered. “Normally I wouldn’t even get close to that.”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine,” said Steve. “Parker! Let Stark in, go get some water.”

Peter obediently jogged off to the sidelines, nodding at Stark, who came onfield looking uncomfortable.  He stayed uncharacteristically quiet all through the huddle, and Steve wondered if he’d perhaps found the one arena on Earth where Tony Stark was not possessed of superhuman self-confidence.

  

Then, of course, Tony went and turned out to be a goddamned Ultimate Frisbee **_savant_**.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve really couldn’t tell which was more annoying. Having Tony Stark be effortlessly, astonishingly, just eye-wateringly good at a sport Steve’d had to work at for years, or watching everyone else watch Tony be good at it. The first few times Tony practiced, it was just teammates clapping Steve on the back—a smattering of “Where’d you **find** this guy?”s and “Are you SURE he’s never played before?”s, as Tony looked uncharacteristically bashful. But then word got out, and suddenly there were girls at the games. Like, _a lot_ of them. Sitting on the sidelines, looking bored except for how they weren’t—their eyes kept tracking Tony, and whenever he’d go jogging past two or three of them would sit up straighter, laugh a little louder, adjust hair and cleavage. Steve couldn’t even really blame them, which was also kind of annoying; Tony was a sheer pleasure to watch. When he stretched out to catch a low disc, he seemed to hang in the air a few milliseconds longer than a normal human would, like Jordan hovering at the net, the laws of physics mysteriously inapplicable. And on defense, his speed and ferocity made him seem a half a foot taller—even though he was physically smaller than almost everyone on the team except Parker. Steve frequently found himself just stopping to _look_ , as helplessly lost in admiration as any of the sidelined girls.

 

“You know,” said Sam Wilson, following Steve’s gaze to where Tony, caught in an eddy of players, was having his hair aggressively ruffled by one guy and his back patted by another, “You really did that guy a favor.”

“Yeah, how’s that?” said Steve.

“Look at him,” said Sam, tactfully ignoring the fact that Steve had been doing little else for the last three minutes. “He’s got friends now. ‘Fore you showed up, he never left his room. Got mouthy once or twice a semester, sent to detention. Someone would always make a phone call, Tony’d be back in class the next day.”

“Don’t imagine that made him too popular,” Steve said.

“Eh,” said Sam. “I think everyone felt sorry for him.”

“Why?”

“Cause Dad never shows up,” said Sam. He waited a beat for the implication to sink in, eyes sliding sideways to watch Steve.  “Yeah, see, no one has ever seen Tony Stark’s parents. They don’t come to drop him off, they don’t come to pick him up, they don’t come for anything.”

“Does he just… live at the school?” Steve asked.

“Oh no, someone comes. But it’s not Tony’s dad. It’s his butler.”

“His butler,” Steve said, eyebrows raised. “Isn’t that… a little old-fashioned?”

“You’re telling me,” Sam said. They watched Tony soaking up the affection of his teammates a little more. As Tony leaned into a friendly chokehold, Steve felt the knot of jealousy in his stomach loosen, then finally melt away. He was about to turn to Sam and say something like, _Thanks,_ when Sam sighed. “Of course, if he keeps on hogging up all the pretty girls, I’mma kill him myself,” and jogged off to rejoin the team.

“Right,” Steve said to no one. “Good talk.”

 

 

“Banner.”

“Here.”

“Barton.”

“Here,” called Barton, still at it with the knee-jiggling. It felt like he had a belt sander going underneath the desk. Steve tried to maneuver his shoulders to get the vibration right at the sore spot under his left shoulderblade where Peter Parker (not looking) had run straight into him at last practice.

“Parker.”

“Here,” came Peter’s voice from the back.

“Rogers.”

“Here,” said Steve, and Mr. Coulson smiled over his glasses at him. Steve didn’t think he was very special, at least not in a school with Tony Stark in it, but in Mr. Coulson’s room he got treated… differently. Not in a bad way. Just in a way that made him forget being “that weird military kid.” “That coma kid.” “That kid whose friend is _still_ in a coma.” Steve realized he was drifting and snapped back to the class. Mr. Coulson was asking a question. No. Wait. Mr. Coulson was calling a name like it was a question.

“Romanoff? Romanoff?”

No one answered, and students looked around the classroom in confusion. No one ever ignored Mr. Coulson in his own classroom—and no one ever skipped Mr. Coulson’s class.

“Huh, that’s weird,” said Mr. Coulson. “We’re supposed to have a new student named,” and here he peered at the attendance folder. “Natasha Romanoff. From Russia. Barton, go out and see if you can find Miss Romanoff? She’s probably lost on her first day.”

“Sir yes sir,” said Barton, darting out of his chair (damnit—Steve had just gotten the corner of the desk where he wanted it) and out the classroom door. None of the other teachers would let Barton out of class, because Barton would never come back to their classes. He’d get found three hours later, climbing the stacks in the library or the ivy on the outside wall of the Academy or a cheerleader named Bobbi. But Coulson always sent him on errands, and Barton always came back to Coulson’s class.

“In the meanwhile,” Mr. Coulson said, “Let’s talk about the War of the Roses, and why generations of inbreeding between royalty is a bad idea.”

Steve allowed himself to relax into the current of the lecture, a smooth river punctuated by little eddies of laughter and the occasional question—Mr. Coulson didn’t try to trip people up, but he wanted opinions, and he liked to take polls. Today’s poll asked if they believed monarchy could ever be a just system of government. And Steve was just about to get in a pretty significant argument over the issue with Carter the Brit, when the door to the classroom opened. Barton stepped inside, his arm around a tiny, huddled teenage girl dressed all in black, red hair falling across her face.

“Sir, this is Natasha Romanoff,” Barton said, something new and awed and tender in his voice, and Steve noticed Barton was standing a lot taller than he normally did.

“Hello, Natasha, I’m Mr. Coulson, I’ll be your History teacher,” said Coulson, extending his hand, and Natasha shrunk away, looking to Barton for help.

“Sir,” said Barton quietly, and the entire class strained to hear, “She doesn’t speak _a word_ of English.”

“Well then, I can think of nowhere better for her to sit than next to you, Barton,” responded Mr. Coulson kindly. “She’ll hear plenty of it. Rogers, budge up a seat.” Steve did, and Natasha slid behind him, hunching her shoulders to hide behind Steve’s back. Once she was back there, Steve didn’t hear a peep out of her for the rest of class period. He guessed that his days of getting emulsified by desk-rattle were over.

 

 

 

“We have a Norseman? A Norwegian? Whatever. A Thor, in my homeroom,” Tony said that evening over the guts of a disassembled iPhone he was trying to turn, somehow, into a projector. Steve just knew this was going to end in porn. “He’s gigantic. He’s like three of you mashed together, G.I. Joe.”

“Sounds big,” muttered Steve distractedly, reading the same explanation of molar weight for the third time with no appreciable meaning seeping into his brain. Giving up, he tossed the textbook aside. “How’s the projector going?”

“Fuck Steve Jobs right in the asshole,” said Tony.

“That’s about how my chemistry’s going,” said Steve. “Why don’t we call off for the night, go do something fun?”

Tony looked at him like he’d just suggested blood sacrifice. “ _Cadet Rogers,_ whatever’s gotten _into_ you? I didn’t think you knew about **fun**.”

“Forget it.”

“No no no, I’m just kidding,” Tony said, clambering to his feet and grabbing his hoodie. “Yes. Fun, let’s do it.”

“Don’t you mean let’s have it?”

“Maybe,” Tony said, giving him an unreadable look, and Steve flushed even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t actually said anything dirty. “Come on, if we head down the east stairs during freshman curfew they won’t even notice we’re gone.”

“Are we worried they’ll notice?” Steve said, but Tony was already at the end of the hallway.

“Hut-hut, Rogers.”

They descended four flights of stairs quickly, past the squall of girls on the third dormitory floor, a sobbing one-way cell-phone conversation in Korean on the second where all the ESL students lived, and the muffled tones of a late rehearsal on the first, floating up from the ancient black-draped ballet studio which nestled like a dark, cavernous heart in the center of the building. Pushing open the heavy fire door at the bottom of the stairs, they emerged, drawing deep breaths of the velvety May air.

“Look,” said Steve. “Fireflies,” but Tony was already plucking at his sleeve, pulling them up the path between the ceramics studio and the new art building. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Steve drew one more deep, appreciative breath of the night air and then set off, jogging up the driveway after Tony, a dark shape glowing against the white gravel. Not for the first time, Steve admired the smaller boy’s fluidity, his grace—and then a thought caught him smack across the face: _This is not how you think about a friend._ The thought was startling, like a jolt from one of Tony’s tasers, but the strangeness was in how the thought _wasn’t_ strange. _You’ve known this all along,_ echoed some voice from deep inside Steve, in a calm clear tone like a great iron bell. It was a deep, placid, resonant certainty—a truth, impossible to ignore. And yet Steve wasn’t afraid—because underneath that thought, there was another note, ringing, chiming out, creating harmony with the first thought: _He’s into you, too. This is a date._

_Deep breaths,_ Steve reminded himself. _One step at a time. No time for wishful thinking,_ and then Tony turned around and those dark liquid eyes nearly swallowed Steve whole. “So I’ve been thinking,” Tony said, jogging backwards, “Everyone always tries to sneak out and go skinny dipping in the swimming pool, right?”

“I guess?”

“Which is why they always have the security guard wandering around the courtyard and a camera on the pool,” Tony continued. “It’s bad liability, an unlit pool at night in a school with a lot of horny teenagers. They should really scrap it but it looks nice in the brochures.”

“OK?”

“But you know what they don’t watch?”

Steve slowed down as the penny dropped. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No. Stark! No. Really?”  
“Really,” Tony said. “We are going skinny dipping in the decorative entrance fountain.”

“But it’s lit!”

“Six ways from Sunday, I know. What kind of a moron would go skinny dipping in that? Why even bother putting security cameras on it?” Steve was about to protest farther, but then Tony, still trotting backwards up the hill, pulled his sweatshirt over his head and the words died in Steve’s mouth. Tony’s skin was pale and his frame was kind of wiry, but he was sleek and muscled as an otter, and the line of fur heading down into his jeans was dark and— _beautiful_ , the voice in Steve’s head named it, before Steve himself got a chance to. Tony’s hair, emerging from the sweatshirt, was even more rumpled than usual; his eyes had a glint of mischief in them, and Steve swore he saw Tony _wink_ before he got a faceful of sweatshirt.

 “Race you there.”

“Hey!” Steve said, shaking the heavy, sleep-scented sweatshirt from his face and running after Tony, up the long and curving driveway, past the turnoff for the maintenance sheds and the soccer fields, to where the big SHIELD Academy sign, lit with floodlights, presided over a decorative multilayered fountain outlined in expensive slabs of sandstone. The SHIELD Academy specialized in the problem children of the rich and powerful, kids who’d gotten kicked out of Andover or Phillips Exeter or Nassau County Day. And while they supplemented their ranks with ESL and international students like Natasha and Thor (and charity cases like Steve, a little voice whispered), near-delinquents like Tony Stark were—quietly, unspokenly—the school’s bread and butter. The school made up for it with window dressing; the expensive fountain and laser-cut copper sign; buildings named conspicuously after minor Gettys and cousins of Carnegies; mottoes in Latin. Scratch the surface and you’d find a crumbling Victorian edifice, cracks in the foundation, dandelions growing up through the tennis courts. Algae in the fountains.

“This water’s green,” Steve said before he could stop himself from sounding like a hopelessly finicky invalid. He hasn’t been finicky—or an invalid—for a long time, but, somehow, being around Tony Stark makes him feel that way all over again.

“Hmm,” said Tony, his tone unreadable, his eyes locked on Steve’s from the other side of the fountain, the underwater spotlights casting rippling ribbons of green across his face. “Do you wanna stop?” His tone was mild, neutral—Steve shook his head.

“No.”

Tony’s face broke into a wide grin. “Good.” He began undoing his jeans, a little flair in the gestures of unbuttoning and unzipping that told Steve he was perfectly aware of how good he looked doing it. Steve gulped, got busy stripping his own t-shirt off—when he emerged from the shirt, Tony’s eyes were somehow darker. “Nice night,” Steve said, lamely.

Tony’s eyes didn’t budge from Steve’s, but his wolfish grin grew wider. “Yeah. It is.”

Steve flushed, stumbling out of his jeans and into the fountain, where he had to catch himself against the SHIELD sign to keep from slipping. “Hey. It’s warm.”

“Yeah?” said Tony, climbing in. “Son of a bitch. It **is** warm.” He sat on the middle ledge, letting the water from the uppermost ledge play over his back and shoulders as he stretched with evident pleasure. Steve couldn’t help staring; Tony’s closed eyes, his lolling head, his small groans of pleasure, were almost obscenely compelling. Steve had never met anyone who lived so _in their body_ as Tony Stark, that was it; he seemed utterly comfortable in his skin, confident and free in a way Steve, for all his size and strength, never did. And just as Steve was about to open his mouth and say something truly disastrous, something like, “You’re incredible,” his eyes fell on the scar bisecting Tony’s chest. Jagged and rippling, it followed his sternum, but roughly, as if whomever had done the surgery had been in a great rush to get at Tony’s heart. When Steve looked up, Tony’s dark eyes were steady on his face.

“Bet I’m the only seventeen-year-old you know with a pacemaker,” he said.

“A pacemaker?” Steve repeated dumbly, and Tony’s mouth torqued around wryly.

“Yep.” He hopped off the ledge, stepping towards Steve and taking Steve’s hand in his, pressing Steve’s fingers to a point a few centimeters to the left of the jagged scar. “Right… here.” Under Steve’s fingers, Tony’s heartbeat thudded warmly. “It happened when I was fifteen and under the custodial care of my father’s business partner,” he said, almost conversationally. “My parents were divorcing and the courts decided both of them were too drunk to be parents, so…” He sniffed. “Anyway. That’s when my heart decided to start going haywire. Panic attacks, or at least they thought at first. I don’t remember too much except I blacked out on spring break and woke up in the cardiac unit of Dubai General.”

Steve processed.

“Anyway. My dad was furious, not much he could do at that point since technically I’d been kidnapped. Turns out you’re not supposed to take a minor out of the country when you just have temporary guardianship. Not that it mattered. Obie made the call, I got the pacemaker. This little… toy-sized taser keeps me alive. Keeps my heart going so I can keep inventing stuff.”

“Just so you can keep inventing stuff?” Steve asked, hoping that his voice didn’t sound so damn hopeful.

Tony’s gaze dropped briefly to Steve’s lips, then back again. “Y’know, inventing stuff, being a genius, taking care of my family’s philanthropic responsibilities, kiiiinda being a playboy—”

“Stop talking,” Steve told him, and then they were kissing, and oh God, he was kissing Tony Stark who was his roommate and a spoiled trust fund delinquent and kind of a dick, if Steve was honest about it, and… it was spectacular, was the thing, black fireworks were going off behind his eyelids and Tony’s warm, dense body was crowding up against him the same way Tony’s tongue was in his mouth—insistent, demanding. A lot like Tony, actually.

“You taste good,” Tony broke off the kiss to inform him, “Like… America.” Then went right back to kissing Steve before he could say anything like, _what_ , or _why America_ , or _you taste good too_. And Tony did taste good—he might’ve smelled like solder and grease, but he tasted like coffee and clove, dark and rich and sweet, like the kind of spice that people used to carry back from India. And before Steve could say something like, _you taste like what people fought trade wars over_ , Tony pulled back and said, “So not that I wouldn’t like to fuck you right here in this fountain, but there actually is quite a lot of algae.”

“Right?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda gross. Listen, we can’t go back to the dorms just yet, no one’ll believe we’re turning in early and Hill will check up on us.”

Steve grinned. “I know a place.”

 

 

“What _is_ this place,” Tony sputtered, stumbling after Steve through the darkened forest.

“Obstacle course,” said Steve. “Low ropes, mainly. It’s part of SHIELD’s campus, how have you never been up here?”

“Uh, have you _met_ me, not really the outdoors type,” said Tony. “Plus I don’t go in for… uh. Calisthenics. Whatever—this is.” They’d come to the six-foot wall.

“Too bad,” said Steve, tugging himself up the wall and landing lightly on his feet on the soft leaf litter that cushioned the other side. “I would’ve enjoyed having you on this side of the wall.”

Silence greeted his statement—well, silence, and a hoot owl announcing itself somewhere off in the forest. Tony appeared around the side of the wall. Even in the dark, Steve could hear the smile in his voice.

“You know, you can just walk _around_ the wall.”

“Well, now, where’s the fun in that,” Steve said, and then Tony’s kiss took all his words away.


	3. Chapter 3

 

“Pssst. Psssst. Pssssst. Rogers. Psst.” The knee-jiggling was now dampened by two desks and the still-silent Natasha Romanov, but nothing on earth could stifle Clint Barton when he wanted to get your attention. Steve sighed. 

“What is it, Barton?”

“Is it true?”  
“Is _what_ true?” Steve asked, bracing himself. He hadn’t **thought** Tony was the type to spread his conquests around—something about the softness in his roommate’s expression this morning—but maybe he was wrong.

“Is it true that Stark’s tasers actually makes you piss yourself?”

Steve swiveled around in his chair to boggle at Barton. _“What?”_

Clint shrugged. “I hear he made a security guard at his last school lose bladder control.”

“Lose—where did you hear that from?”

“Rhodey.”

“Who’s Rhodey,” Steve started to say, before giving up. “Nevermind. No, Stark’s tasers do not make you piss yourself. They make you pass out.”

Clint’s eyes widened, yet another torrent of questions visibly building, when Mr. Coulson’s voice came from the front of the room: “No, I will not allow you to question my student, he is in class right now.”

The security guard, looming in the doorframe, hitched up his belt in a way he obviously thought looked threatening. “We have reason to believe that Mister Banner—”

“I don’t care if you think he traveled back in time to assassinate President Kennedy,” Mr. Coulson cut in smoothly. “He is in my class, and so I need to teach him now. Good day, Mister Ross.” He swung the door shut in Ross’s purpling face and pivoted on his heel, ignoring Clint’s delighted hoot of approval and heading for the board.

“Today, class, we’re going to talk more about the Magna Carta.” In response to the chorus of groans, he held out his hands. “I know, I know. But consider this: the great charter is the first document the English managed to come up with which pushes back against the idea of the divine right of kings to basically act like tyrants. It is a resistance to absolute power, an assertion of the rights of the governed, a safeguard against bullies.” His eyes rested briefly on Bruce’s—then flicked away, a subtle beat, just long enough for a hush to descend over the class. “And that is why we are basically never going to be done talking about the Magna Carta. Everybody got their notecards for the debate? Right, get them out.”

 

 

 

“You hear about that new Natasha chick?” Stark said to Steve that afternoon in their room.

Steve, stretched out on his belly on the floor with a sketchbook, looked up. “She’s in my History class,” he offered. “Russian, right?”

“Is that it? I thought Belorussian. Russian, Belorussian, potato, potahto, right? Anyway, you hear about her?”

“Hear what?”

“Apparently she’s like an actual no-shit Communist and went to like some hardcore ballet academy. You know, like where they start them out at seven and work them dawn to midnight. Like, Olympic-level shit, tiny little ectomorphic gymnasts with no periods, in Soviet Russia, pas de deux does _you_.”

Steve blinked. “Sometimes, it’s really hard to follow you.”

Tony tossed aside a screwdriver. “Whatever, wanna make out?”

“Yes,” said Steve, and then they were making out on Steve’s bunk, and it was _excellent_.

 

 

 

Which made it pretty jarring when Steve looked up and saw Clint standing there in the doorway, casually eating a banana. “’Sup?”

“Wh—Barton!” Steve sprung up, running a hand through his hair and stepping away from the bunk, feeling himself turn bright red.  Looking curiously at Steve, Tony curled up from the bunk as lightly and gracefully as he did everything else. “Hey, Barton,” he said, as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on, “What can I do you for?”

“Looks like Cap’s got that covered,” said Barton, and Tony shot a sly look over his shoulder at Steve.

“ _Steven._ You didn’t tell you me had a _nickname_.”

“I don’t,” Steve protested. “I was a cadet, not a—”

“Whatever, Captain, we’ll explore that later when I’m totally not gonna call you that in bed. Meanwhile, Barton, shall I assume you need my weapons expertise? What is it this time? Knives? Throwing stars? More of those weird exploding arrowheads I made you promise never to tell me how they worked out? How _did_ those work out, anyway?”

“Like a charm that never happened,” said Barton. “But this one’s not for me. I need a taser. For Tasha.”

“Tasha, Natasha, _Natasha_ Natasha? As in, Romanov?” Tony mouthed a ‘wow’ at Steve. “I mean, what are the odds, we were just discussing her and her terrifying Commie athletic training. Couldn’t she just kick someone to death if they pissed her off?”

“Probably,” Barton said. “But this isn’t for her during the daytime. This is so she can sleep.”

“She having sleeping problems?” said Tony. “Seems like there’d be a lot of guys willing to-”

 _“Stark,”_ Steve said warningly. Barton’s posture was relaxed, his shoulders loose, but his eyes were rock-steady, fixed on Stark—Steve thought that of all the people he would very much like _not_ to have a problem with, it’d be Clint Barton. “Why does Natasha need it. exactly?” he asked Clint, trying to keep his tone polite and neutral.

“Culture shock,” said Clint. “Uh, the bad kind. The kind that wakes you up screaming and fighting and not knowing where you are.”

That didn’t sound like any kind of culture shock that Steve had ever heard of, but he did know something about waking up not knowing where he was, so he kept his mouth shut.

Tony didn’t. “How’s she gonna keep from tasering herself if she wakes up disoriented?”

Clint snorted. “Trust me. Even disoriented, Tasha’s not a klutz. She’ll be smart with it. I just think she’d sleep better knowing she had a weapon handy.”

Tony wobbled his hand, unconvinced. “I dunno, I still don’t think a taser’s what you’re looking for. Here, have her try these on for size.” He went to a drawer, pulled out a small black velvet pouch, and tossed it to Clint, who wrinkled his nose.

“She’s not gonna like the girlie packaging.”

_“Open it.”_

Clint undid the drawstrings and upturned the sack over his palm. Out slid two blue-black sets of knuckles shaped like honeycomb. Clint hefted them. “They’re kinda… light.”’

Steve wandered over and peered down at the knuckles. “They look… delicate.”

“I know, that’s their beauty. Lightweight, tempered aluminum, look like nothing at all, but these puppies can take five hundred pounds of pressure per square centimeter before they buckle. You get hit in the face with one, it’s gonna leave a mark. But they feel and wear just like rings—sleepable, comfortable. They’re rust-proof, so she can take ‘em in the shower if she wants to, feel less vulnerable there. They’re slightly articulated—basically, she could play piano in ‘em without compromising dexterity. Or, you know. Just knock seven bells out of anyone who bothered her. I think your girlfriend will like them.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Clint responded rotely, turning the knuckles over in his palm. “But you’re right, these are perfect for Tasha. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing, on the house,” said Tony. “Just ask her to tell me how they work out for her? Or, she can write a note, whatever. Pigeons. Just. Feedback. My inventions would never get better without it.”

 “I’ll let her know,” said Clint. “Thanks, man.”

“Any time,” said Tony, patting Clint on the back as he turned to leave. Right before Clint stepped out the door, he stopped and looked over his shoulder at Steve.

“Cap.”

“Barton,” Steve said dumbly, and then Clint was gone.

The door swung shut, and Tony scrubbed the back of his neck a bit.

“So,” Steve said. “That was awkward.”

“Was it? Yeah, I guess? I guess it was? Anyway. Uh. I got some… some work I gotta… get back to,” said Tony, sitting down at his desk and tapping his laptop’s keyboard to wake it, shutting Steve out as firmly and smoothly as if he’d closed a door to an office. Steve waited for a second, but Tony’s back was a wall, and so he let himself quietly out of the room. It was only when the door closed behind him that he realized he had no idea where he intended to go. All his homework and his sketchbook were in the room behind him, and the idea of slinking back in to retrieve them was less than appealing. So Steve did what he always did when he felt at loose ends; he went out for a run.

 

 

It’d just finished raining, which in this corner of Pennsylvania just meant that that the sky was gathering its breath for another shower; Steve’s sneakers splashed in the muddy driveway as he began to pick up pace, his body building up warmth as his muscles loosened in the cold air—by the time he got back, he’d be steaming like a horse, all his muscles twitching pleasurably. Which sounded great, except for how he couldn’t seem to get out of his head, stop running over the filmstrip of Tony’s face in the exact moment between when Clint had interrupted them and the moment when the Tony Stark Charm Offensive had been switched on. In that brief second between pure self-indulgence and pure business, had there been something like—hurt? Right as the penny dropped, Steve’s foot fell badly and a shooting spike of pain darted right up the top of his foot, all the way to the  knee. Steve went down in a cluster of tiger lilies, right next to the SHIELD Academy sign. Clutching his soaked sneaker, he sat up and tried to massage his spasming foot back into some semblance of looseness, when he noticed that the fountain was turned off. A sparrow hunched under the dry ledge of the fountain, staring balefully at Steve. Even for a fluffy bird the size of a handball, its gaze seemed accusatory.

“What,” Steve said to the bird. Right on cue, thunder rumbled overhead, and a clump of rhododendrons overhanging the driveway decided to dump its cold leaf-load of rainwater right down the back of Steve’s neck. “Yeaaargh,” he said, shaking the water out of his sweatshirt. Then he looked up at the white, flat sky. “Alright, alright, you made your point.”

 

 

 

Limping back to campus took a while. By the time he got back, it was past curfew and the security lights were on. Maria Hill, crossing the courtyard from the swimming pool, looked surprised to see him.

“Rogers, what are you doing out?”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s past curfew,” said Steve. “I went for a jog, hurt my foot. Decided not to run back.”

Maria’s eyes flickered up and down him for a second—which, from Hill, felt like being run through a metal detector.  “Alright,” she said. “Check in at the infirmary, let them know I sent you. Get that injury iced and don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes’m,” said Steve.

 

 

 

 

In the infirmary, Clint Barton sat on an exam table swinging his heels.

“’Sup, Rogers?”

“Not much,” Steve said, letting himself down into a chair with relief. “What happened to you this time?”

Clint’s grin disclosed a mouthful of blood. “Fell into a coffee table.”

“Uh… huh.” said Steve, noticing that part of Barton’s eye and a lot of his knuckles also seemed to have come into conflict with the coffee table. “You get into it with coffee tables a lot?”

“Only the ones which really piss me off,” Barton said cheerfully, and then Nurse Sitwell  came into the room, frowning at a chart. When he looked up, his face fell even further.

“Oh God, now there’s two of you.”

“Just here for some ice,” said Steve.

“Kitchen’s through that door,” said Sitwell. “Ice pack’s in the freezer. Help yourself and bring it back tomorrow.”

Steve went into the kitchen, found the ice pack in the freezer, wndered back into the exam room.

“Need any help?” he offered.

“What’sa matter, trouble in paradise already?” Sitwell said from his crouch in front of Barton’s busted face.

Clint shrugged at Steve over Sitwell’s shoulder. “Wan’t me that told him.”

“That’s true,” said Sitwell, still without looking around. “Mister Barton is the soul of discretion, I never get so much as the name of a coffee table out of him. Other students, though, are very interested in the state of your love life.”

“Is that a fact,” said Steve.

“Actually, come to think of it, no,” said Nurse Sitwell cheerfully. “It’s more the state of Tony Stark’s love life that everyone is interested in. You’re just the collateral damage, _mijo.”_

 “… Great,” said Steve.

“Cheer up,” said Barton. “Could be worse. You could be dating, uh…”

“Really shoulda had a name in mind before you started that sentence, genius,” Sitwell told him, handing him a wad of gauze. “Here. Bite down on this. It’ll stop your bleeding problem and your speaking problem.”

“You’re _mean,”_ said Clint, but his tone was tempered by admiration as he inspected the wad of gauze before jamming it between his back teeth.

“Why all the kids love me,” said Sitwell. “Now get back to your dorm, Rogers. Can’t hide out here forever.”

“Oo could ry,” said Barton around the gauze as Steve let himself out the infirmary door and into the hallway. There was music—muffled, faint music, but music—still coming from the ballet studio. Someone was dancing, this late at night? Steve wavered, weighing the possibility of running into Hill against the terrible awkwardness of going back into a room with a pissed-off Tony Stark. It didn’t take much weighing.

 

 

 

The music coming from the dance studio got louder as he approached the door, loud enough to muffle the heavy fire door as he pressed it open. Inside, Natasha Romanov stood at the barre, one leg describing half-moon circles on the floor, hair up in a severe bun and posture so elongated she gave the impression of trying to see over a very high ledge. Her eyes caught his in the mirror and her extended foot snapped back into fifth position.

“Didn’t mean to disturb,” said Steve. “Just wanted to see who was dancing.”

She did not respond, but went instead to the stereo, where she snapped off the music.

“Woah, I’m sorry, I’ll leave,” said Steve, putting his hands up and backing towards the door. “Please. Don’t stop on my account.”

She watched him in the mirror as he backed away, waiting until he’d re-opened the fire door before speaking.

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“No. You, is OK,” she said, and then pointed at the auditorium benches. Then she placed her finger over her lips.

“OK, so I can stay, but keep quiet?”

She pointed to the benches again, then made the hushing gesture.

“OK.” Steve went and sat down on the third row, feeling as if he were about to be on display, not she. Natasha switched the music back on and returned to her position at the barre, reassembling herself like a robot fitting itself back into place. Her leg extended again, tracing half-circles on the floor—after a while, as the movement started to become less rote and more hypnotic, dreamy. She dipped into a plie and rose again, her arms loosening, mirroring the gesture of her leg—she was still at the barre, still performing the same six steps, but they were slowly melting into a dance, her body telling a story instead of reciting it. By the time she stepped away from the barre and floated, on point, to the center of the stage, Steve felt like he’d watched a butterfly fight its way out of a chrysalis, then perch on a waving stalk until wind blew it aloft. It wasn’t a warmup, it was a transformation; as he watched her stretch and move, extending her arms as if beseeching someone and just as quickly retracting them in fear, he felt as if he were in the presence of an entire life, expressed simply by movement. It went on, for an hour, two hours, impossible to say. He was so hypnotized he didn’t even notice that it was over until she’d turned off the stereo and picked up her towel, flipping it over her shoulder and coming to the middle of the stage to face him. In her eyes, a cool and steady question.

“I don’t know how I ever thought you had a language barrier,” Steve told her.

Natasha tilted her head quizzically to the side, and he struggled to think of a way to make himself understood, struggled in a way Natasha clearly didn’t need to. Why would she ever struggle, when she walked around the world in a body that was like a poem? In the end, he settled on a word in Italian that he hoped she knew.

“Bravo. _Brava._ Brava.”

 

 

 

Letting himself back into the room that night, Steve decided not to let words get in the way of what he had to say. He crossed the room swiftly, not bothering to close the door behind him, and met Tony’s opening mouth with a kiss that stole all Tony’s speech. When he finally pulled back for air, Tony’s eyes were dark, his lips swollen.

“I’m not ashamed to be seen kissing you,” Steve told him. “I’m not in the closet or anything like it. I just didn’t know if you were ready to, you know. Be public with me.”

“Honey, I live my life in public,” Tony told him, and then they were making out again, and someone walked by in the hallway and said, “Gross, get a room,” and Tony laughed his ass off as he closed the door.

 


	4. Chapter 4

After that, things got _serious._ Not the type of serious with feelings. The type of serious with _sex_. Steve had never realized how intense a hookup could get while still remaining, technically, a hookup: Tony and he didn’t hold hands down the hallways, or send each other lots of texts, or do anything particularly romantic at all, and yet every time he stepped in the room at the end of the day Tony would come at him with that _look_ and Steve’s whole world would collapse. In science lab, he looked down at his notebook and saw only Tony’s eyes, warm and dark and inviting, looking up at him—Tony’s mouth, wrapped around his cock. In English class, he had to turn in a piece of short writing unfinished because he zoned so badly on the sense memory of Tony’s hands sliding up his thighs that he simply froze, staring off into space, until the kitchen timer dinged and Ms. Danvers made them all turn their papers in. Steve obeyed, but was haunted for the rest of the day by the nagging worry that he’d somehow written down some of the things Tony’d been whispering in his ear as he stroked him, things Steve had no idea people could even _say_ to each other in bed. Things like:

“I wanna tie you to my bedframe and leave the door open, let everyone on the hall see my obedient soldier begging me to stroke his cock. I wonder if you’d come harder, knowing they were standing outside listening.”

Things like: “You’re a really good cocksucker, you know that? You know you could get a _job_ doing that? You _like_ that, don’t you? Being good at that?”

Things like: “I think maybe you wanna take my cock in your ass. Look at you, you’re _blushing_. Think about it.”

Things like: “I wanna take you to my parents’ vacation home in the Hamptons.”

Steve stilled, abruptly, around the guffaw which—damnit—was definitely happening, blowjob or not. He let Tony’s cock slip from his mouth. “Your parents have a vacation house in the Hamptons?”

Tony, looking utterly relaxed about his blowjob’s interruption, gave a tiny shrug from where he lay, one arm tucked behind his head. His other hand, draped loosely over his chest, lightly guarded his pacemaker’s scar—Steve guessed Tony wasn’t even aware he did that. “They never vacation, so. Is a vacation home a vacation home if you never use it? Anyway. It’s ours, and it’s private, so we could be naked all the time if we wanted.” His fingers fluttered, drummed on his chest, a tiny signal of some interior stress, coming out.

“Sounds nice,” Steve said, resuming a slow, soothing stroke pattern up Tony’s cock, leaning forward and pressing a open-mouthed kiss to the head before leaning back and pillowing his head on his fist, looking up at Tony.

“This is nice,” said Tony, apropos of nothing. “I mean. This. Uh, you and me. We’re good, right?”

“I’d say more than good,” said Steve, lightly tracing the rim of Tony’s cockhead with a thumb still slightly chalky from today’s Frisbee practice.

“More than good, that’s like. Really good. Like, high nineties. Even.”

“I hadn’t thought to put a numerical value on it,” Steve admitted. He licked a stripe up Tony’s cock. “You know you’re kind of a nerd, right? I mean, I get that you have this reputation as the playboy of the century—”

“Don’t forget brilliant Ultimate Frisbee player,” said Tony, whose team had administered Steve’s a rather sound drubbing earlier in the day.

“I wasn’t forgetting,” said Steve. “Just trying to.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Shut up,” said Steve affectionately, rubbing circles over the sensitive spot at the underside of Tony’s cockhead.

“Yeah? Make me,” said Tony, and Steve swallowed him down. Later, as they were lying close in the darkness, it occurred to Steve that Tony had been trying to start a conversation about something. He was just damned if he could figure out what it was.

 

 

 

 “Am I a bad listener?” Steve asked, out loud, in art period. Bruce Banner looked up from his linoleum stamp project. looking first at Natasha (who was tuning everyone out), Thor (flirting with a tiny sophomore), and Clint (looking just as confused as Bruce).

“Uhh, are you talking to me?”

“I’m just asking,” said Steve. “In general. Am I like, a clueless guy?”

“Is this a sex thing?” said Clint, knee jiggling at double time on his stool. “I gotta prepare myself mentally if this is a sex thing. Also I am the god of sex things.”

Steve could have sworn he heard a tiny puff of breath—a snort, almost—from where Natasha was bent over her linoleum. Nah. Couldn’t have been. Natasha didn’t understand English. 

“I’m pretty the god of sex doesn’t dress like that,” said Steve, gesturing at Clint’s ensemble, which today included a purple t-shirt, three sizes too tight, that had ridden up and exposed a fair swath of Clint’s belly.

“What, this?” Clint said, and gave a long, obnoxious stretch, pulling the shirt up another three inches and stroking his stomach lewdly. “I’m also the god of not shrinking my laundry.”

“Dear God,” Bruce remarked faintly.

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Clint. “How can I help you, my child?”

Steve dropped his face into his hands. “Why did I ever think asking you guys for help would be a good idea?”

“I don’t think you’re a bad listener, Steve,” Bruce said kindly. “But it might help if we knew what you were talking about.”

“He’s talking about Tony Stark,” said Clint. “What?’ he said when Steve stared at him. “Cone of silence only applies when you’re not actively begging for help with your sex life. Your sexy, sexy sex life.”

“It is pretty scandalous,” Bruce said mildly.

“It is not!” Steve protested.

“Yeah, everyone on third floor with ears says different,” said Clint.

“Ehh,” said Bruce. When Steve looked at him incredulously, he shrugged. “What can I say, I’m on second and I can hear it.”

“I’m never having sex in the dorms again,” said Steve flatly. “It’s nothing but camping from here on out.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Clint. “In the rooms, technically they can’t do anything about it. You’re both minors, trying to figure out if it’s mutual statutory or just really loud porn is real awkward for them. All kindsa liability if they start questioning you about your sex life, because again, minor. But you go having sex outside on SHIELD property, in public, that’s a real law. Indecency. They can actually nail you for that.” He waggled an Xacto blade at Steve. “Face it, you’re our auditory floor show every night.”

“Don’t embarrass him over it, it’s kinda sweet,” said Bruce. “Or, you know, would be. If any of us were in relationships.” Everyone quietly noted how Bruce’s eyes flicked involuntarily to Natasha at the end of that sentence.

Steve shook his head. “OK, so now that everyone apparently knows my business already, help me figure out what he wants? I can’t tell. He runs hot and cold with me.”

“Dude, that makes you literally closer than anyone else,” said Clint. “You think we know what Tony Stark wants? He runs up here,” and Clint pegged a hand, flat, six inches above his head. “Up here with fucking Hiltons and Kennedys and shit. Plus he’s like, a mechanical genius who’s gonna go to MIT when he graduates and prolly like, invent a supercomputer that will take over the world. You think he has shit to say to us about what he wants in a relationship?”

Steve looked to Bruce for help.

“He’s not wrong,” said Bruce mildly. “That guy’s brain is an island unto itself.”

“Have care how you speak about Steven’s friend,” came a voice from the end of the table. Thor had apparently pulled himself away from the tiny brunette he’d been nuzzling and joined the conversation. “Tony Stark’s mind may be far afield, but his heart is obviously cleaved to Rogers.”

“Uhh…. thanks?” said Steve, because he wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

“Truly, it is quite obvious,” said Thor. At everyone’s silence, he continued. “Surely you have all noticed that he took up a sport simply to please Rogers.”

“Oh, no,” said Steve. “That wasn’t it, see, he set off the fire alarm, and he had this deal with Hill that if he did that he’d have to pick a sport.”

“And he just, happened to pick yours?” said Bruce.

“No,” said Steve, “He let me pick his—oh, God.”

“Aaaand _there’s_ the realization,” said Clint.

“Don’t feel bad,” said Bruce, reaching over and patting Steve’s hand comfortingly. “It’s Tony Stark’s world, we’re all just playing in it.”

 

  

 

Steve went back to the dorm and kicked the door open. Stark, startled in the act of blowtorching a Pop-Tart, flipped up his welding visor. “Hey there, didn’t expect you home so early.”

“Did you set up the whole, pick me a sport thing so that I would put you on Ultimate and then you could hit on me?” demanded Steve.

“Uhhhhh, I can’t tell if you’re mad at me for that, so, uh, depending on that, no?”

“More like so turned on I could throw you through the mattress,” said Steve, crossing the room.

“Oh, well then in that case yeah, of course I did, you’re just now figuring tha—,” said Tony, cut off mid-sentence by Steve’s kiss. Behind them, the door swung shut, and Tony moaned into Steve’s mouth, bringing his hands to Steve’s jawline and walking them both backwards to the beds, where Steve’s knees buckled and they tumbled over each other into the lower bunk.

“You have any idea how bad I wanted you, from the first minute you walked into the room?” Tony breathed into Steve’s mouth, then pulled away and yanked Steve’s t-shirt over his head.

“You could’ve had me without playing Ultimate,” Steve pointed out. “I could still be maintaining my illusions of greatness.”

“Now where’s the fun in that?” Tony said, straddling Steve’s hips. “Besides, what if I enjoy beating your ass?” His eyes, locked on Steve’s, grew darker as he said it—Steve felt his face heating up.

“See, that’s what I thought,” Tony said, quietly. “There’s a part of you that matches up to a part of me. And I’m pretty sure you’ve never actually explored that part. Am I right?”

Steve swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “Uh, what are we talking about, exactly?”

Tony’s grin was undeniably filthy. He leaned forward and murmured into Steve’s ear, “The part where you like being _mine_.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat, audibly, giving the game away as Tony, triumphant, unfurled over him, slotting their dicks against each other. “See, the thing is, Captain Rogers—”

“It’s Cadet Rogers,” Steve corrected him, then moaned as Tony ground into him, nipping at his shoulder.

“Potato potahto, you’re missing the point. The thing is, Rogers, even though you are the very image of a modern major general, and while you know that my respect for you on the field as an athlete is _boundless_ —”

“Get to the point, Stark,” Steve panted, undoing Tony’s sweatpants string.

“My point is that here, in this room, when it’s just you and me, you are **dying** to be ordered around. And lucky for you,” Tony said, punctuating the thought with a kiss, “I am more than usually bossy.”

Steve narrowed his eyes at Tony. “Are you gonna just _talk_ me into submission?”

Tony’s eyes darkened. “You really shouldn’t have said that.” Then he grabbed Steve by the hips, sat up, and with one swift motion flipped Steve over and pressed him into the mattress. His hands came up to grip Steve’s, fitting them to the supports of the bunk bed as his lips brushed Steve’s ear. “Hold on tight.” The cool air of the room rushed in to chill Steve’s back as Tony hopped off the bed to root around in a drawer—Steve heard an unfurling strip of condoms, then the noisy crack of the lube bottle’s cap. Tony came back into the bed, and the warmth of his body as he leaned back over Steve, working him open with two fingers and a thumb, was like a benediction. “Now, I wanna see you hanging on tight there. Don’t let me see you let go of those slats.”

“Yes _sir_ ,” Steve moaned, the words out before he could control them.

Tony chuckled a little, his body coming to rest on Steve’s back as his forearms braced himself on either side of Steve’s head, the weight as delicious as the warmth. “Hold on tight, Daddy’s gotcha.”

Steve moaned, lost in the sensation of Tony moving over him, that blunt nudge of Tony’s cock opening him up, the push and pull and salt and sweat of it—Tony’s forearm was right there, and to stop himself from moaning something too raw, something like “I love you,” he opened his mouth and sucked a reddening bite against it, marking Tony’s arm, at least, as his.

 

 

 

 "Sooooo, you got it bad,” Sam Wilson observed, lazily twirling a Frisbee on his middle finger and looking sideways at Steve.

“What? Got what? I don’t have it… bad,” Steve said.

“Wow,” said Sam. “That’s impressive. You lie for America in the Olympics?”

“Shut up,” said Steve grumpily, feeling his face heat up as he picked at the plastic grommet on his shoelace. Across the field, the shirts team, lead by Tony, was enjoying halftime. They were also winning. By five points. Steve’s team was… not enjoying halftime so much.

“If you don’t talk about it with me, at least talk about it with somebody,” said Sam sagely. “It’s not good to bottle feelings up. It makes white people climb clock towers and start shooting people.”

“Yeah? What’s it make black people do?” said Steve.

Sam looked sideways at him. “We ain’t got that problem. The crazy shooty thing, that’s y’all’s bag. Your world is crazy.”

Steve snorted softly. “True enough.”

They both watched the opposing team horsing around, Tony capturing Scott Lang’s head under his elbow and ruffling his hair. Sam shook his head. “You know that little punk put me on the ground once?”

“Scott Lang?”

“I still, to this day, have no idea how he did it. I was just tending goal, minding my own, and up rushes this little pipsqueak, so short he ain’t even hit my collarbone, and just…. flat-out lays me out. You know what they start calling him after that?”

“What?”

“Summerslam.”

“He must love that.”

“Yeah, better’n what they called him before.”

“Why, what’d they used to call him?”

“Ant Man.”

“Yeah, that would be better.”

They sat in silence for a while longer, listening to the cicadas, the soft dusk chorus of songbirds, Scott Lang’s voice asking if anyone had orange slices.

“So saying I did,” said Steve, trusting that Sam would pick up his meaning from before, not make him spell it out. “Um. How much trouble would I be in?”

Sam snorted gently. “Your new nickname is Trouble Man, let me put it that way.”

Steve moaned softly, dropping his head into his crossed arms. 

“You know, sometimes, getting laid out flat by someone you don’t see coming isn’t such a bad thing,” Sam said gently.

“My room is Tony Stark’s weapons lab,” Steve said into his arms.

“I didn’t say it would be good for your blood pressure,” said Sam.

 

 

 

“No. No. No! My blood pressure can’t take this shit, Stark, are you trying to make me have a heart attack?”

“C’mon, Sitwell, just one little incision, in and out, you’re telling me you don’t have faith in my electronics? After the job I did for you?”

“That was a Tivo, Tony, this is your _heart_.” Sitwell’s tone was half amused and half-terrified, like he thought if he couldn’t talk Tony out of his newest obsession, that Tony might try it on himself. He aimed a beseeching look at Steve.

“Cadet Rogers, please. Tell cabrón here what’ll happen if he tries to run fiber-optics down his own pacemaker wires?”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again. After a moment, he admitted, “Actually, I have no idea what would happen if he tried that.”

“Fat lot of moderating influence _you_ are,” Sitwell informed him, then returned his sharp gaze to Tony’s grin. “What’s gonna happen is you’re gonna die and my Domo ass is gonna go to jail for fuckin’ failure to keep you from doing it.”

“Oh, come on, Sitwell, where’s your sense of adventure?” Tony said, grasping him by both shoulders as he slid down from the table, setting his weight experimentally on the angle Sitwell’d bandaged and braced for him. “Jail is terrific for good-looking guys like you. I’ll mail you some soap.”

“Charming,” said Sitwell. “Useless,” he said, pointing to Steve. “Go on, get your boyfriend out of here and see if you can keep him out for at least another month.”

“Not likely, next week we play Hydra in Ultimate!” Tony yelled over his shoulder as the door closed between them. In an undertone to Steve, he muttered, “That _is_ who we play next week, right?”

“Not even close,” said Steve. “It’s Asgard Prep next week, then Xavier School, then

Baxter Country Day. Hydra’s not till August.”

“Ehh, close enough.”

“You are the worst Ultimate Frisbee player ever to be amazing at Ultimate Frisbee.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m amazing at lots of things. Speaking of which…” He stopped, looked around, then grabbed Steve by the shirt and tugged him into an empty custodial closet, backing up until he was sitting on the rim of the tiny, rusting sink. “C’mon, close the door.”

“We don’t fit in here,” Steve said, the complaint swallowed up by Tony’s warm, pliant kiss.

“Bet I could find a way to make us fit,” Tony said, nipping at the underside of Steve’s chin, pulling a high-pitched whine out of him.

“You’re… ahh—you’re gonna get us expelled.”

“Worth it,” Tony said hungrily, and yanked Steve’s fly open.

 

 

  

“Dude, is that a _hickey?”_ Clint reached across Natasha’s shoulder to poke, gently, at Steve’s skull, tilting his head over for inspection. Steve let it slide. He was getting used to Clint’s total lack of boundaries. Either that or it was like a Stockholm Syndrome thing.

“Dude. Dude look. Tell me this doesn’t look like a hickey to you.”

“It… does look a little like a hickey,” Bruce admitted from his desk one aisle over. Several months removed from his last incident with Ross the security guard, Banner seemed to letting his guard down, unclenching his body language by degrees. It helped that Natasha was starting to speak in English, and Bruce was the only one she seemed to think worth speaking to. Steve’d expected jealousy from Clint, but the hyperactive archer had taken the development in stride, and was even now braiding Natasha’s hair into a long russet fishtail while keeping up an uninterrupted volley of conversation with Bruce.

“What is hickey?” Natasha said, and everyone noted how Bruce turned bright red as he answered.

“It’s uh, it’s when you kiss someone, on like their neck, and then the suction forms a bruise—”

“It’s **_that_** ,” Clint said, reaching over Natasha’s shoulder and pointing directly at the hickey on Steve’s neck. “That right there is a hickey.”

“It is not,” said Steve.

“Oh yeah, tough guy? What is it, then?”

Steve blinked.

“Yeah, should’ve come up with an answer for that before you opened your big yap,” Clint crowed.

“Shut up, Clint,” Steve grumbled, trying to conceal his smile. It was nice, having friends. And right on cue, there came the rush of guilt—like he’d somehow betrayed Bucky in some complex way by making friends here at SHIELD. Like he should’ve stayed there, where Bucky was. Like he never should’ve woken up, or should still be waiting there for Buck to do the same. Steve would’ve, is the thing—he wanted to stay. But there’s only so long you can spend out of school before you have to be enrolled **somewhere** , or so the truancy laws say. And after Buck, there just didn’t seem to be much point in going back into the military. So Steve enrolled at SHIELD, and felt guilty every time he enjoyed it.

“Mister Rogers,” Mr. Coulson said from the front of the room, and Steve came back to himself.

“Sorry?”

“I was asking if you could contribute your vote to the current polls,” said Mr. Coulson, and Steve went to the blackboard to add a hashmark under “Development of the Printing Press” in the poll for the Best Of The Middle Ages, and one under “The Spanish Inquisition” for the Worst, where the bubonic plague was the clear leader. At the end of class,  Mr. Coulson held Steve back with a subtle glance and gesture—as the last of the students shuffled out, Mr. Coulson sat on the edge of his desk. “Cadet Rogers, I hope you won’t mind my observation that you seemed a million miles away today. Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Steve lied miserably.

Mr. Coulson simply gazed at Steve.

After several minutes of this, Steve dropped his head.  “No,” he admitted. “It’s not OK.”

“I’m told I’m a good listener.”

“It’s not really a SHIELD problem.”

“Great,” said Mr. Coulson. “I work at SHIELD all day, I’m sick of SHIELD problems. What’s up?”

“You know where I come from?”

“Sure, Brooklyn.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean before I came to SHIELD. You know I was in a military academy, right?”

“Yes. I read your file. I was in the room when we admitted you, in fact,” said Mr. Coulson.

“So you know that my discharge was medically related. That I was in a car accident.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I wasn’t the only one in the car. This buddy of mine, he was also there. And, uh, he’s still in a coma.”

Mr. Coulson’s face did a complicated and elaborate sort of wince, which, along with all the muscles in his right shoulder reflexively shifting towards Steve and then back away, told Steve that his teacher had just tried, at great personal cost, to keep from embracing him. Steve appreciated both the gesture and its restraint, but he didn’t really know what to say next, so he awkwardly waited. After a while, Mr. Coulson said, “Have you had a chance to see him?”

“What, Bucky?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Once. Before they discharged me.”

“How’d he look?” The question could’ve come off insensitive, but coming from Mr. Coulson is just sounded… nice. Curious, in a human kinda way.

“Like shit,” Steve said.

“Yeah, comas’ll do that to you,” Mr. Coulson said.

Steve looked at him.

“I was in one once, too,” said Mr. Coulson. “Medically induced. It wasn’t pleasant. I dreamed a lot while I was in it, but afterwards, I had flashbacks.”

Steve winced. “Yeah. Uh. I dream a lot about before the accident.”

“That’s normal,” said Mr. Coulson. “It’s your brain trying to make sense out of what happened.”

“I wish it would stop,” said Steve.

Mr. Coulson sighed. “Yeah, me too.” The late afternoon sunlight, filtered through pine trees, stretched across the classroom.

“Listen,” said Mr. Coulson. “I can’t make you feel better about what happened to your friend. But I can tell you that what you’re doing here, at SHIELD, carries weight. It means something. At the very least, you’ve kept Tony Stark from blowing up the entire east wing of the dormitories.”

“I’m not sure I want that responsibility,” said Steve.

“Too bad,” said Mr. Coulson, and smacked Clint gently on the shoulder. “Come on. Dinner. They’re gonna eat up all the chicken stirfry, leave us with the tofu.” 

“Sir, when did tofu become such a thing?” Steve asked on his way out the door.

“When we lost the Cold War,” replied Mr. Coulson, turning out the classroom lights behind them.

 


	5. Chapter 5

“Tony, really, we really gotta get some rack time before tomorrow,” Steve protested, a protest his dick didn’t seem to be participating in. “Come on, man—Xavier School is no joke.”

Tony let Steve’s cock out of his mouth to look up at him incredulously. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Xavier School is the definition of a joke. It’s an **art** school.”

“They have some talented players,” Steve said.

“They have some _burnouts_ ,” Tony said. “They have gothy kids with emotional problems, and practicioners of the fine art of Wicca, and kids who have dedicated their lives to walking around in—what’s that really weird anime getup where they dress half like porno schoolgirls but there’s also gloves and really tall hats?”

“How do you know so much about Xavier School?” Steve asked suspiciously.

“My father tried to send me there,” Tony said. “Professor Xavier himself took exactly one look at me and sent me back out the door. My hand to God.”

“Your hand is on my cock,” Steve said.

“My other hand, I’m multitalented,” Tony said. “You seem tense.”

“I’m tense because we have _an actual game tomorrow_ —”  
Tony rolled his eyes elaborately. “Oh God. OK. You know what? You need to relax.”

“And you need to focus!” said Steve, sitting up on both elbows. “What are you _doing?”_

Tony had hopped off the bed and was rummaging around in one of the many plastic bins he kept components in. “Getting my tools. I can’t work without my tools.”

“Huh?” Steve said, and then he saw the rope Tony was holding.

“You,” Tony said. “You need to relax. I mean it. And I am focused on the game, that’s why I’m saying this. You’re stressed and not sleeping and not relaxing. And I need my team captain rested. So you,” said Tony, climbing back into the bed and straddling Steve. “Are gonna let me tie you to this bedframe. And you’re gonna let me do whatever feels good to your body, for as long as it feels good.”

Steve blinked. “OK.”

Tony leaned in. “I didn’t hear that.”

“I said _OK_ ,” Steve said, beginning to get annoyed.

Tony leaned in further. “I said, I _didn’t hear you_.” And Steve heard the underlying rumble in his voice that was more subsonic threat than purr. His cock stiffened suddenly, painfully; before he could even register the decision, he heard his own voice: “Yes sir.”

“Good boy,” Tony said, lightly, almost casually, all the threat gone out of his voice as his gaze flitted up Steve’s arms to the spot where Steve’s traitorous hands—completely without his permission—had begun to wind themselves around the slats of the bed. “Eager, are we?”

“Shut up,” Steve moaned, as Tony’s dark head dipped over a nipple. “Ouch!”

“That wasn’t very nice,” said Tony, and smoothed his tongue over the spot he’d nipped. “I think I’m gonna need to discipline you for that.” He tugged one end of the rope sharply, and Steve, who hadn’t even noticed the loops being slid over his wrists, felt his arms get pinned smoothly to the bedframe. “Say you’re sorry.”

“ _So_ rry,” said Steve—purposely seesawing the word in his mouth because he wanted to see what Tony would do.

What Tony did was straddle Steve’s chest, pressing him into the mattress. “No you’re not,” he said, conversationally, feeding the finished ends of the ropes into the ends of their knots and snugging Steve’s wrists more firmly against the slats. “But that’s okay. You’re all tense, you haven’t been properly fucked in ages, no wonder you’ve been acting like a total bitch.”

“I haven’t—“ Steve started, and Tony lay a finger across his lips.

“Shh. You have. It’s my fault. My responsibility. I figured out what you were a while back and I haven’t been taking the time to discipline you and give you what you properly need. That’s on me.”

“What are you even _talking_ about, Stark,” said Steve, and then Tony thumbed down the waistband of his boxer briefs and pulled his cock out and rested it on Steve’s mouth. Steve was so taken aback that the words died in his mouth—he felt the blush rising in his face, shame at having been thrown by such a sleazy play. But Tony’s cock felt _so good_ resting on his lips, was the thing—it was warm, and heavy, and enchantingly pink and smooth. It thudded, very slightly, juddering to the interior metronome beat of Tony’s heartbeat; Steve let his lips soften, just slightly, to cushion it against the moist pad of his tongue.

Tony’s eyes weren’t on his cock—they were on Steve’s, his gaze dark and intense. “Suck it,” he said, simply, and Steve opened his mouth and gave a soft, wet suckle, purling lushly over the soft pink head of Tony’s cock and ending with a protracted tonguing of the sensitive underside of the rim.

“Good boy,” Tony said. “That was very nice. When you’re a good boy, you get rewarded.” His hand closed over Steve’s shaft, pumping him lazily once; twice. “Does that feel good?”

Steve, eyes closed, nodded.

“Can’t hear you.”

Steve’s voice cracked a little. “Yes—yes _sir_.”

“Good. Now, why don’t you suck it a little more?” Tony canted his hips forward, an invitation, and Steve moaned as he took in more of Tony’s cock, the shaft so much thicker than his own, the head leaking precome as tangy and sharp as licking a leather saddle. It was awkward, sucking cock with his arms pinned above his head—without his hands to control the depth of the invasion, Tony’s cock routinely probed his soft palate, bumping up against the back of his throat and making Steve gag, his eyes water. After a particularly deep thrust, Tony pulled back and let Steve catch his breath, a thin dewline of spit connecting his cock to Steve’s upper lip.

“That was very good cocksucking,” Tony purred, running his thumb over Steve’s cheekbone. “And now it’s made you all pretty and flushed. You’re blushing like a virgin, Steve.”

“Shut up,” Steve grumbled, aware that his cheeks were heating further even as he spoke.

“Why? It’s true, you’re blushing like a virgin. Doesn’t _make_ you one. You _aren’t_ a virgin, are you, son?” Tony elided the last word, dropping no emphasis on it whatsoever, and yet Steve’s heartbeat jumped into a full gallop, beat audibly pounding in his ears.

“No sir,” he whispered, so faint even he could barely hear it.

Tony leaned in closer, his dark silhouette filling Steve’s entire field of vision. “No, _Daddy_ ,” he whispered against Steve’s mouth, and before Steve could gasp sealed it with a rough kiss. Steve felt Tony’s fist, wet with sweat, grip down on his shaft and tug it hard, and he whimpered into Tony’s mouth as his own hips chased Tony’s hand upwards.

_“Please.”_

“Please what.”

“Please fuck me.”

“Please fuck me, _what_ ,” Tony said, swirling his thumb over the tip of Steve’s cock.

 _“PleasefuckmeDaddy,”_ Steve hissed out below his breath, wanting to die of embarrasment, but wanting this sensation—this drowning, overpowering, headswimming sensation of all-encompassing lust—more. His whole body felt like it was being funnelled through his cock, like he wanted to pour all of himself through the narrow keyhole Tony’d made with his fist, end up pooled and sated on the other side. _“Please.”_

“You look so pretty when you beg,” murmured Tony, dropping his mouth to Steve’s ear. “Did you beg for him?”

Steve’s skin got cold. “What?”

“I said, did you beg for him?” Tony murmured silkily, still flexing against Steve’s leg, his hand sliding up and down Steve’s cock. “The first boy you let fuck that pretty little mouth?”

Steve’s vision went black, his stomach plunging as he pictured Bucky—those eyes—turning to grin at him in the empty classroom—those five minutes in the laundromat—their second kiss just five hours after the first because they couldn’t wait again—those eyes. Bucky, turning to him in the empty English classroom, that Thanksgiving with the windows open and the scent of the fir trees and the knowledge that everyone else had already cleared off campus and it was just them, they’d done it, they’d found a way to be alone together.

“Get off me. Right now,” said Steve.

Tony stilled. “What?”

“You heard me. NOW,” said Steve. “Untie me, get this shit off of me, MOVE.”

Tony moved fast, undoing him, mouth moving a million miles a minute because of course it was. Steve didn’t hear a word of it. He yanked his wrists free of the ropes and he was gone.

 

 

 

 

Steve had just enough awareness as he fled to be dimly impressed with the ease of his escape: SHIELD, while it’d certainly housed plenty of trust-funded delinquents, didn’t offer much in the way of security for someone with a go-bag and a rappel rope stashed in the ceiling panel of the disused RA’s shower on the third floor. Steve removed the shower’s storm window slowly and carefully, using the tiny multi-tool in the third pocket of his bag and setting each bolt down quietly on the tile floor instead of letting them drop. Then he flung the end of the rappeling rope out the window and watched it flump heavily on the loading dock below. He waited to make sure the movement hadn’t attracted attention before hoisting himself and his duffel out of the window and sliding carefully down to the ground. He was four miles down the road towards the Greyhound stop before the faintest tinge of blue began to fill the sky; another three before a car passed him. It occurred to him that soon, Tony would turn the brilliant bent of his engineering mind to triangulating Steve’s location via the GPS in his phone—at the next bridge over the Lee River, he dug his phone out of his jeans pocket and flung it sideways into the quiet, slow-moving water below. He felt bad about that pretty immediately—the phone didn’t have anything on it he needed, but a pang went through him at the idea that the locator might lead Tony to think, however briefly, that Steve had jumped. Steve wasn’t _jumping_. Not yet. He just needed _space_.

 

And to see Bucky.

 

  

 

“Listen, I’m **telling** you he’s gone back to his old high school and if you just _let_ me call some people I can interc—”

“Mister Stark,” interrupted Headmaster Fury, looking about as aggravated as Fury ever got, “I don’t care if Cadet Rogers has gone to the **_moon_** , it doesn’t make you his guardian. SHIELD is already in contact with the people who need to know about him going AWOL and we will handle it, without your or _your people’s_ involvement, is that clear?”

Tony’s gaze snapped off to a spot on the wall beyond Fury’s left ear, a move calculated to infuriate.

“Watch this,” Barton whispered over his shoulder to Thor. “The master at work.”

“You’re right,” said Tony, like Fury was suddenly an afterthought, an annoyance. “You’re completely ancillary, I don’t even know why I thought you needed to be in on this. Good talk.” He swept off towards the tray return, leaving Fury looking murderous in the center of the cafeteria, where everyone was doing a very poor job of concealing their interest in the confrontation. Fury glared at them all in general for a moment before stalking off, the cafeteria filling with a dull roar of speculation in his wake.

“I heard Rogers was hitchhiking towards Alaska,” Scott Lang said around a mouthful of scalloped potatoes. “Gonna live off the land like what’s his name, you know.”

“The Unabomber?” Clint suggested.

“He was in _Montana_ ,” corrected Peter Parker. “What? He was!”

“No, I mean what’s his name _in the bus_. With the Pearl Jam.”

“You mean ‘Grizzly Man’? Werner Herzog?”

“No I mean the other movie! Damnit, Banner, which movie do I mean?” Lang said, smacking the cafeteria table in frustration.

“Do you mean ‘Into the Wild’? Chris McCandless?” Bruce asked.

“Yesh! That’s the one!” said Scott, still shoveling in potatoes.

“He died in a bus of malnutrition,” Bruce pointed out. “And possible wild rice toxicity.”

“Steven seems unlikely to meet this fate,” said Thor. “He is well trained in the art of survival. We’ve had many talks about hunting and foraging for mushrooms, which in Norway is a typical evening—”

“Right, so moving on,” said Scott Lang, pointing with his fork at Clint. “You. You’re always out of your room after curfew. What’d you see?”

 _“Me?”_ said Clint, pointing elaborately at his own chest. “I saw _nothing_. And besides, you think I can follow Steven fucking Rogers when he doesn’t wanna get seen or followed? Lemme tell you, it’s not like following _Hill_ or something.”

“Why would you follow Miss Hill?” Peter Parker asked.

 _Lesbian,_ Clint mouthed at him, and Parker sat back in his chair, mouthing a wide _Wow_.

“None of this helps us keep Tony from jumping off a roof,” Bruce pointed out.

“This is something we’re caring about now?” Clint said, only to get thwacked soundly across the chest by Natasha, who up until now had been silently shoveling in food at a grim and furious rate.

“Stop,” she said, in a thick Russian accent. “You should not even joke.”

“I’m with Natasha,” said Scott Lang instantly—Barton mouthed _Ass-kisser_ at him, Lang pulled a face, and the grimacing rapidly escalated into a full scale slap-fight.

“Ah, young love,” came a voice from above the table, and everyone was startled to see Tony Stark standing there. Even Barton, fist tangled in Lang’s hair, strained to look over his shoulder. “Tony? That you?”

“Yep, ‘s me,” Tony continued, half-distracted, seemingly nonplussed by the table’s collective gawp. This was, after all, the first time he’d deigned to speak to anyone at the table except Barton. “Listen, I’m thinking about getting in some trouble and you all have the requisite amount of sublimated sexual tension and latent criminality. So, come help.”

The table looked at each other for a beat.

“That appeal really should not have worked as well as it does,” complained Bruce Banner, rising and reaching for his milk carton.

“Yeah, well, Stark’s a convincing guy,” said Barton, gathering his silverware. “Lead the way, Tony.”

 

 

 

“We really didn’t think you meant _stealing_ a car!” hissed Peter Parker, hopping from foot to foot in an apoplexy of anxiety. From beneath the school van, Scott Lang’s legs shifted.

“Someone hand me a screwdriver?”

“Not stealing, hot-wiring,” Tony said. “Ant Man, Phillips’ head or flathead?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lang said. “I’m gonna use it to punch a hole in something.”

“Phillips’ head it is,” said Tony, passing him the tool. “Thor, anyone coming?”

“Not a soul, Tony Stark,” said Thor from the door of the maintenance garage, where he was keeping a watch. “Barton is on the roof—”  
“Because of course he is,” moaned Bruce Banner, who had been sitting on a pile of snow tires with his head in his hands for the last five minutes.

“—and he reports nothing to be seen in any direction,” finished Thor. “We are as alone as if we were in the Well of Wyrd, near my father’s summer home in Nor—”

“Dear Christ,” muttered Tony. “Lang, are we hot-wiring this thing or are we buying it a nice steak dinner? Get a fucking move on!”

Lang pulled himself halfway out from under the dingy white van and glared at Tony. “It’s a **Mercedes** , Tony. Do you want it to go into anti-theft mode eight miles down the road?”

“I don’t know, is anti-theft mode more annoying than listening to Thor talk about his family’s real estate?”   
“It **locks up the crankshaft** , Tony. You can’t **drive it** , you just have to wait for the police to come arrest us all—”

“All right, all right,” said Tony, ignoring Bruce’s quiet moan of distress. “Do what you gotta do, just hurry up, wouldja?”

Lang rolled his eyes and slid back under the van.

“What is crankshaft?” Natasha asked Peter Parker, who nearly swallowed his tongue at having been addressed by her.

“Uh, it’s uh, the shaft, and it, uh, connects the motor to the—”

“To the thigh bone,” Lang said, rolling back out from under the van. “All done,” he informed Tony, tossing him the screwdriver. “You can tell me I’m fucking sexy any time now.”

“Well, I have a boyfriend, but I hear Barton’s looking,” said Tony. “Barton! Thor! Let’s get a move on! You too, Borscht Spice,” he said, looking Natasha up and down. “You any good with batting your eyelashes at military types?”

“What is batting eye-”

“Come on, I’ll explain it to you on the way,” Scott Lang told her, pulling her by the wrist towards the sliding door of the van. “Tony, I assume you’re driving slash talking nicely to the cops who will inevitably pull us over and arrest us all?”

“Oh God,” muttered Bruce softly.

“Have some hope, Banner, haven’t you ever done anything really awesome and gotten away with it?” Tony said.

 ** _“No,”_** Bruce said.

“Well, maybe that’s your problem. Chop chop, everyone in the Mystery Machine, we’re going for a ride.”

 

 

  

 

By mile eight, Tony was ready to murder them all.

“Man, I gotta take a leak.”

“Seriously? You had a half an hour to screw around on the roof while Lang was under the van.”

“I was keeping a lookout.”

“You can’t look and pee at the same time? Aren’t you supposed to be like, excellent at staring at shit? Here, use a YooHoo bottle.”

“Friends, it has occurred to me that we are all going to cause our parents much distress by disappearing in this manner.”

“If we don’t get shot. Hey, has anyone thought about the logistics of breaking into what is essentially military property?”

“It’s military? Cool!”

“Uh, Tony, gonna need more’n a YooHoo bottle—yep, yep, there’s gonna be some overflow here. Little help, little help?”

A disgusted chorus rose from the back of the van, and Tony looked over his shoulder: “The **fuck** , Barton?”

“I had three Monsters this morning!”

“That is disgusting,” Tony said, looking back to the road in time to avoid a particularly pesky tree. “Please, someone strap Barton to the roof rack.”

“Here, I’m solving our problem,” Barton announced, peeling up the grooved matting from the floor of the van. “Pardon me, coming through, carpet full of pee.” At speed, he opened the back door of the van and pitched the matting—a long, wavering horn tone sounded from behind the van as Barton tugged the door shut. “There. Problem solved.”

“We’re all gonna die,” Bruce announced.

“Come on, Banner. Look on the bright side, you won’t die bored,” said Tony, “Because you’ll be doing math for me. Here, take this,” he said, pulling a pen out of his pocket and chucking it at Bruce. “Find a napkin and calculate how far Rogers could’ve gotten.”

“Based on _what_ , his blood type?” Bruce said.

“No, his last known appearance at SHIELD and his run times,” said Tony, pulling a tattered envelope out of his other pocket and passing it backwards as he steered the van around a hairpin curve. Barton, who sat within direct flail range of Tony, took the paper and read the scribbled notes there, his eyebrows climbing into his hairline, before passing it to Bruce. “Stalker much?” the archer asked Tony.

“A, shut up, B, it makes sense I know his run times, I’m on the team too, and C, I was the last person to see him at SHIELD so D, shut up again, this is just a faster way of finding him than waiting for Fury to get off his ass,” Tony said.

“Wow, that’s a lot of deflection from someone who’s just stolen a van to chase down his boyfriend,” said Scott Lang.

“You stole it with me, that’s conspiracy, shut your face hole,” Tony warned, and Lang beamed.

“I’ve always wanted to commit conspiracy.”

“My brother committed a conspiracy once,” said Thor. “It was against our father and got him banished from our home for several years.”

Everyone in the back of the van looked at Thor until he hunched defensively. “It was for Loki’s own good. We sent him to a lesser country, it’s not as though we sent him into space.”

“A lesser country?” Bruce inquired mildly, and Tony noticed in the rearview mirror that Natasha was sitting up ominously straight.

“Pit stop!” Tony announced, making a too-sharp right turn into the Sheetz gas station. “Who’s hungry?”

“Ooo, I want a Slurpee,” said Barton as they piled out of the van.

“I think we’re done pouring liquids down you, big boy,” said Tony, before nearly running into the broad chest and folded arms of Sam Wilson.


	6. Chapter 6

“Tony,” Sam said.

“Wh-heeyyyy,” said Tony, aiming for casual and falling short. “Hey Sam, what’re you up to today?”

“Stopping you,” said Sam.

“Stopping me... getting snacks?” said Tony.

“Stopping you going after Rogers,” said Sam.

“Oh, now then, we’re going to have a problem, Wilson,” said Tony, voice dropping down into rippling threat.

“Only a problem if you don’t hear me out,” said Sam evenly.

“That’s all I gotta do? Listen to you and then go on my way?”

“I’m pretty convincing,” said Sam.

“Alright,” said Tony. “Well, if you wanna talk, you’re gonna have to follow me to the can. Is this one of the Sheetz with nachos?”

“Oh hell yes, I’m gonna get nachos, hey Wilson,” Clint said, edging past both of them on the way into the Sheetz. Sam and Tony looked at each other.

“How **did** you get here so fast, anyway?” Tony said.

Sam shrugged. “Up until Rogers showed up, I was the fastest dude on Ultimate.”

“So you… jogged here?”

Sam grinned for a second, letting Tony’s face cycle through disbelief and shock. Then he held up his phone. “Naw. Uber. I knew Barton couldn’t go without a pee break.”

“Yeah, well, as it turns out, he couldn’t,” Tony griped, following Sam through the door of the convenience store.

 

 

 

“Soooo, you gonna convince me, or what?” Tony said several minutes later, regarding Sam over a mound of heavily jalapeno’d nachos. Behind them, at another of the bright red picnic tables, Thor was entertaining Natasha by chugging a bright blue Slurpee at speed, while Bruce was soothing his sorrows with a mound of cheese-soaked fries.

“What do you expect to happen when you catch up with him?” Sam asked, answering Tony’s question with a question.

Tony shrugged. “I ‘unno. Don’t really like to plan that far ahead, I’m kinda a seat-of-my-pants kind of guy.”

“Yeah, no wonder he likes you,” Sam said. “I ever tell you I saw that guy walk straight into a Young Republicans afterschool meeting and punch their president right in the face?”

Tony chuckled. “No, but it makes sense.”

“Walked right back out, too. Never got in trouble for it, either. I think everyone was just so shocked he’d done it that they kind of let him get away with it.”

“Story of my life,” said Tony. “So, this is all very disarming, but where’s the part where you convince me that I shouldn’t track him down?”

Sam shrugged. “I guess I figured you’d get the whole, he’ll-punch-you-in-the-face subtext, from that story I just told you. No?”

“Oh, I got it, I just don’t care. See, I invented this taser,” Tony said, and Sam cut him off smoothly.

“Listen, I know you care about the guy, so let me just tell you how this plan ends. If _you try to stop him_ , he will cut you out of his life completely. And it’s not because of what you’re thinking.”

Tony blinked once, then twice. “Holy shit, you think I’m _jealous_.”

“Hey, if the shoe fits, then steals a car, straps itself in diapers, and drives across Florida with its romantic rival in the trunk.”

“You’re funny, you know that?” said Tony, his eyes narrowing.

“I’ve heard it mentioned,” said Sam. “Listen, my point is—”

“Come with us.”

“What?”

“You heard me, come with us. You’re Rogers’s friend. I mean, I’m his fuck but you’re his friend, he’ll listen to you, plus, seeing a friendly in the van might mean he won’t rabbit the second he sees us.”

“Ah,” said Sam. “You want me as bait.”

“There will be snacks involved,” said Tony quickly, and Sam sucked his teeth, staring off into the greenery of the lush Pennsylvania forest, trying not to laugh or smile. After a second, he said, “You know, I’m not the only funny one in this conversation.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony said, standing up and quickly gathering the scattered trash from their lunch. “Don’t go spreading it around, I kind of enjoy my, genius playboy billionaire philanthropist reputation.”

“Is that your reputation?” said Sam. “Must be a quiet kind of reputation. I haven’t heard anything like that.”

“Oh no? Is the noise of my Ultimate Frisbee domination just too loud?” Tony said, shooting a three-pointer into a nearby trashcan with the wadded-up lunch trash.

“You want me to get in the van or not?”

“Face it, you decided to get in the van the second I offered,” said Tony, walking backwards towards the open passenger door. “Guys! Rally! Let’s burn some rubber!” He looked directly at Sam for a fraction of a second, and Sam could swear he saw the whisper of a wink, before Tony turned and was climbing back into the driver’s seat, and Sam was shaking his head, running for the open door.

 

 

 

By mile sixteen, Sam was ready to murder them all.

“You’re kidding. No one brought a _map_?”

“Don’t look at me,” said Scott Lang, whom no one was looking at. “I was just supposed to hot wire the van.”

_“How was I supposed to know the Alleghenies were immune to modern GPS technology?!!?”_ Tony yelled from the driver’s seat. _“I didn’t know it **wasn’t the future here!!!** ”_

“In Norway, the GPS signal is always very strong, even in the most remote areas, such as in glaciers,” said Thor. “I had heard that America did not have such a good cellular network, but I am surprised at just how backwards it really is.”

“You know what, IKEA, I don’t go over to your lingonberry bog and call it backwards,” started Clint, and Bruce held up his hands: “Woah, woah, woah, let’s all calm down a little—Natasha, where are you going?”

Natasha, stepping over Bruce, didn’t answer—instead, she squeezed through the space between driver’s and passenger seat and, balling up her fist, punched the glove compartment, which fell open. Several large folding maps, plus a pocket Rand McNally, fell out.

“There is map,” said Natasha. “Everyone now shut up, please.”

There was silence as she returned to her seat, silence punctuated only by the slight rustling of Tony unfolding the map. Then, from the front seat, “Hey, it’s only two hundred and seventy five miles away! We’ll be there by dinner!”

“How fast are you _driving_?” asked Bruce.

“Uh, sixty-three?”

“This is a thirty, Tony.”

“I thought that was only at night?”

“What the—have you never _driven_ before?”

“…Does it count if you have a driver?”

“Pull over. Pull over right now,” said Bruce, joined by a chorus of several other van inhabitants in varying tones of concern. The van slowly petered to a stop, and Tony turned to look over his shoulder.

“I really don’t get what the big deal i—”

A wadded, wet napkin hit him in the face. Then an empty soda cup. Then a small hail of other assorted lunch trash.

“You fucking—”

“Rich fucking—”

“Trust fund—”

_“_ Asshole!”

Tony took the pelting with good grace. “So, one of you’s driving?” he said after the shower of trash died down.

“Yeah,” said Clint Barton, climbing forward through the van. “Budge over.” Taking the seat from Tony, he adjusted the height of the steering wheel and the mirrors. “Jesus Christ, Stark, how short _are_ you?”

“Has anyone actually checked if Barton’s got a liscence?” Tony said sourly.

“Five years in the circus,” Barton said, not looking at Tony as he turned the ignition and threw the clutch in. “Had my CDL at sixteen.”

“I didn’t know you could get your CDL at sixteen,” said Bruce.

“You can if your ID says you’re eighteen,” said Clint, gently guiding the van back onto the road and beginning the climb of another steep Pennsylvania mountain.

“You are a very, very odd person,” Tony informed Barton. When no response was forthcoming, he went and sat beside Bruce.

“Has it begun to sink in just how terrible of a plan this was?” Bruce asked.

“Just, tell me it’s going to work out all right, all right?” Tony said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Ahh, see, that would be the kind of prediction I actively try to avoid making,” said Bruce. “Never worked out too well for me.”

“Jesus, you are awful at this moral support gig, you know that?” said Tony.

“Is that what you asked me to come along for?”

“Well, that, and friendship, yeah. But seriously, man. Who told you Christmas wasn’t real?”

Bruce’s face tugged in two different directions. “No one in particular,” he said. “Why, are we likely to need some childlike optimism? We brought Thor.”

Tony snorted. “Naw, I’m thinking we’ll do just fine with the eight lock picking sets and several genius juvenile delinquents I brought along. And one heavy hitter, that’s you, buddy.”

“Oh, then we’re definitely in trouble,” said Bruce.

“Come on, why so modest. I’ve heard about how you throw down, that security guard coulda killed you and instead he went off with his tail between his legs.”

“Naw, see, you enjoy fighting. You like the competition. But when I get mad, you know. I just—black out. People say it’s a red mist, but for me, it’s like a whole other guy takes over my body and I’m just… raw. An exposed nerve. It’s a nightmare.”

“Ahh, you’re tiptoeing,” said Tony, his eyes closed, his head tilted back against the gently swaying side of the van. “You need to strut, big guy. You might enjoy it.”

“Yeah well,” Bruce said quietly. “You might not.”

 

 

 

Halfway to the United States Junior Military Reserve Academy, the van developed a flat tire.

“Gimme the tire iron. I can change it,” said Scott Lang, twitchy from hours spent sitting in the van.

Barton, his face impassive but dripping with sweat, did not respond, instead pushing harder on the stuck iron.

“Jesus, you’re going to give yourself a hernia,” said Tony. “Let Thor take a whack at it, man.”

Looking mutinous, Clint let go and stood aside. “That nut’s rusted frozen completely. I don’t think they’ve ever rotated the tires on this thing. Ever.”

“And to think they put other people’s kids in this,” Scott Lang said virtuously, as Thor stepped forward and wrapped both meaty hands around the iron’s handles. Straining slightly, he tugged—and the nut gave way immediately, dropping him to the gravel.

“Loosened it for you,” said Clint immediately.

Thor, grimacing as he rose from the ground, wiped the small, sharp pebbles from his hands. “Aye, I am sure you did,” he said graciously to Barton. “Would you like to loosen the others before I begin on them?”

Barton’s mouth clicked shut, and Tony noticed Natasha stifling a giggle.

“Have we already crossed over the line into Maryland?” Scott asked.

“Not yet,” Tony told him. “Why?”

“I might have a warrant in Maryland.”

“For what?” Bruce asked.

“I broke into a place and stole some stuff.”

“This tire has not been well maintained,” said Thor, straining against the next nut. “Truly, if we were in Norway—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, less talking more changing,” said Tony, noticing a state highway patrol car cresting the ridge behind them. “Psst. Lang.” He gestured Scott behind him so he was concealed by the van, and watched as the patrol car sped past, never even tapping its brakes at the sight of the broken-down van and the many teenagers huddled around its rear wheel. When the car disappeared, Scott let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, it’s good to know we don’t look like the criminals we are.”

“Yeah,” said Clint, around a mouthful of banana. “Makes you wonder what we’re paying taxes for.”

They all watched Thor struggling with the last frozen nut on the tire.

“This would… be… easier, if you would all… stop… staring,” the large blond gritted out, straining against the tire iron.

“Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?” Tony asked, to general approbation, just as the nut gave way with a sharp crack. “Awesome, let’s get that spare on there and get moving.”

“Uh, Tony?” said Clint, rolling the spare out. “This spare look a little tiny to you?”

 “I do not think that tire is an appropriate size.”

“No, Thor, it’s not,” said Tony, wearily massaging the bridge of his nose. “It’s a fucking balloon tire. Only meant to get us to somewhere we can get the real one fixed. Means we have to go to a tire place. Or a mechanics. Does anyone know where there’s a mechanic in…” he squinted at the green exit sign at the crest of the hill. “… Bucksnort, Pennsylvania?”

 

 

 

“This looks like the kind of place they’ve got at least three places you can buy meth,” said Scott, inching the van around a hairpin turn that included a railroad crossing, “during recess.”

“Yeah well, they might be rednecks but rednecks watch NASCAR,” Clint said, pointing at a Sunoco station ahead with a large red-and-blue “24” banner. “And NASCAR fans can change tires fast.”

“Yeah, well, they can also kidnap you and feed you to the hill people,” said Tony, peering out the windshield with an expression of deep misgiving. “Let’s make this a short pit stop, shall we?”

“Relax,” said Clint. “Let me handle this.” As Scott slowed gingerly to a halt in the gravel parking lot of the tiny gas station, Barton hopped out and approached the tiny store. The windows were coated with a reflective, smoky tint, but they could just make him out inside, talking to the cashier and pointing at the van outside.

“Ten bucks says they call the county truancy officer,” said Bruce.

“County truancy, what is this, the Dukes of Hazzard?” said Tony.

“It’s a town called Bucksnort. I don’t think we’re that far off,” said Bruce.

“Ahh, Bucksnort,” Scott Lang said around a sprayed mouthful of Pringles. “Home sweet trailer park. Hey, do you think we could buy moonshine around here?”

“I’m pretty sure this is meth country,” said Bruce, watching a hard-faced mother escort two children out of the convenience store and down the road.

“Holy shit that’s a lady,” said Tony. “I swear to God until I saw the ponytail I had no idea. Now it’s all I can think about.”

Natasha and Bruce shared a look of profound disappointment in their choice of company.

“In Norway,” Thor said thoughtfully, “Many people change their nature at a point in life. My brother was briefly my sister once, and my father was very displeased.”

“I bet,” said Tony. “I’m genuinely shocked you never considered going on reality television.”

“I believe my father thought it beneath the dignity of the family,” said Thor. “Then, of course, he went into a coma.”

“Coma this, coma that, Jesus, why is everyone hopping on this coma trend?” Tony griped. “First Steve, then his suuuuper secret boyfriend—”

_“Awkward,”_ Scott Lang sang out behind him.

“And now Thor’s dad,” Tony continued smoothly, ignoring Scott. “What the fuck, I thought comas were some once-in-ten-thousand shit.”

“They are medically rare,” Bruce admitted. “Though, apparently, not in our friend group.”

“Right?” said Tony, before being interrupted by the back doors of the van flying open. Barton, along with the red-jumpsuited gas station attendant, stood there. “All right,” said Barton. “Everyone out so we can change this tire.” As the teenagers piled out, Tony pulled the archer aside. “Think it’s a good idea to let him see all of us?”

“This guy?” Clint replied. “Yeah, I’m not thinking it’s a problem.”

Tony looked. The attendant was bringing out his tire replacement tools: wheel chalks, jack, tire iron, stuffed unicorn. The first three items he quickly placed in the appropriate spots. Then he lovingly set the stuffed unicorn down to watch the proceedings, giving it a gentle pat on the head.  

“The fuck, Barton?” Tony muttered.

Clint shrugged. “Man loves his unicorn.”

“Hey, any of you kids know who got sent home on America’s Next Top Model last night?” the attendant asked, yanking on the tire jack to loosen the lug nuts. “We had a thunderstorm in the middle of it and lost DishNetwork completely.”

“It was April,” said Peter Parker. When everyone looked at him, he flushed red. “What? She just couldn’t get a handle on her fear during the snake challenge.”

“That’s _such_ a hard challenge,” said Scott. “My cousin CiCi, season 3? She said it was a relief to get sent home before she ever had to do it.”

“Your cousin was on America’s Next Top Model?” said Barton. “You got pictures?”

Lang dug around in his phone. “Here’s Thanksgiving.”

A tiny knot of Barton, Thor, Peter, Bruce, Tony and Sam formed around him, looked. All nodded in unison.

“Nice,” commented the attendant from behind all of them. “Your tire’s done.”

“Holy shit, that was fast,” said Tony, digging into his pocket for his wallet. “How much do we owe you?”

“Eh, I’ll take a handjob behind the air compressors,” said the mechanic. When Tony’s eyes widened, he burst out with a high cackle. “Just kidding, I kid, I kid! It’ll be ten bucks.”

“Ten bucks, that seems a little low,” said Tony, peeling off the bills.

“Well, seems like you crazy kids could use a break,” said the mechanic. “Also I just ate a chimichanga and it is _racing_ through me, so I gotta go back in and use the can before this jumpsuit turns brown.”

“Here,” said Tony quickly, handing the attendant a twenty. “Please don’t tell anyone we came through.”

“Tell anyone, I’m lucky if I can remember my own name for more than ten minutes,” said the attendant, backing towards the station. “Oooh, that’s a disturbing new development, is ass sweat supposed to be cold? Don’t answer that.” He stepped back into the gas station and was gone.

“Odd guy,” said Bruce from behind Tony. “Shall we?”

“Absolutely,” said Tony. “Remind me never to experience the real America ever again. Into the van, everyone!”

 

 

 

 

 “I never thought I’d say this, but I miss Bucksnort,” said Clint. “Why the hell are we in New Haven?”

“I don’t know,” said Tony. “I think we went the wrong way on the Yellow Brick Road.”

“You think?” said Sam, who was driving.

“Hey, a little less smart-assery, a little more reading-the-map-ery,” said Tony.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the genius?” griped Barton, but unfolded the map across his lap and held up his iPhone with the flashlight app on. “So, apparently, New Haven is in Connecticut.”

“Jesus,” said Bruce, snatching the map. “OK, this isn’t terrible. We just missed the turnoff for 287… about an hour ago.”

A chorus of groans arose, and Tony rose above them with a hollered, “All right, all right, settle. Let’s pull over and get pizza, backtracking will be less awful once we’re all fed.”

“Uh, Tony,” said Sam. “You sure you wanna pull over here for pizza?”

“What, in New Haven? Yeah, I’m sure the Yalies will take _great_ exception to my dad having gone to Harvard,” Tony said. “Take this exit.”

 

 

  

“This is NOT what New Haven is supposed to be like,” said Tony ten minutes later, as they all studiously avoided eye contact with the low-slung turbo next to them, where the ratio of passenger to Adam’s-apple tattoo was 1:1.

“Let me guess. No one ever told you New Haven wasn’t all white people,” said Sam.

“No one told me New Haven wasn’t all _Yale_ ,” said Tony.

“And to think you’re the genius in the car,” said Sam, pulling up at a tiny pizza place next to a check-cashing joint.

“Hey, we’re all geniuses,” said Scott Lang soothingly. “Hey, look, a pawn shop! Think they have old-school Nintendo cartridges?”

“In _that_ pawn shop?” said Barton. “Tell you what, you go in there and tell em you got both kidneys, see how many you walk out with.”

“NO ONE IS BARTERING KIDNEYS,” said Bruce. “WE ARE JUST GETTING PIZZA.”

“And shawarma,” said Thor.

“What, Thor, no, we aren’t gonna find shawarma this late a…” Tony said, climbing out of the car and looking up at the sign for the pizza place. The sign read “Moore’s House Of Pizza And Shawarma.”

“Ooookay,” said Tony. “Anyone wanna bet if this place takes American Express?”

 

 

 

 

“Kid. Kid.”

Steve jolted awake with a start. The light in the Greyhound was blue and stark, casting everything and everyone in an ugly, cheap flourescence. His seatmate, a flirtatious blonde named Carol, was gently poking him. 

“Hey,” said Steve. “I’m awake.”

“You want something? We’re in King of Prussia and this is the best chance to get something, if you’re hungry.”

“We’re in what?”

“King of Prussia. It’s a place, sweetie,” Carol said patiently. “I wouldn’t have woken you up, except we aren’t gonna stop again for food for a long time, and they give you half an hour here.”

Steve blinked blearily out the window. “What is it, a rest stop?”

“Yeah. Come on, get up and come in. You won’t be sorry you ate something, come four in the morning when everything’s closed, trust me, honey, the Port Authority in Philly is next to **_nothing_** ,” said Carol, hoisting her red plastic handbag a little higher on her shoulder and patting Steve on the hand in a motherly fashion. “On your feet, soldier.”

“Okay,” said Steve a bit sheepishly, and followed Carol and her towering stack of hair inside the rest stop, where a trucker-style diner had been jammed sideways into a Sbarro’s, with the rest of the space given over to a jarring hodgepoge of arcade games, 18-wheeler parts, pay-by-the-minute showers, and racks of cheap pornography. Carol made a beeline to the pastry case; Steve stood bewildered in front of a refrigerated case of pre-made sandwiches until she came back and grabbed him by the hand.

“Do you wanna have the runs in a fuckin’ bus?”

They ended up eating pie in a booth together, which was a little uncomfortably date-like for Steve. However, since Carol was picking up the check, he didn’t feel he was in much of a position to protest.

“So. Running away from home?” Carol said, her blue eyes friendly lasers.

Steve swallowed a bite of his pie. “Not exactly.”

“Ahh. Running away from something that’s supposed to feel like home but isn’t,” said Carol.

Steve set his fork down. “You don’t miss much, do you.”

“Not really. I get paid to read people.”

“How so?” said Steve.

“I’m an independent freelance masseuse and personal therapist specializing in romantic issues,” said Carol, and grinned around a forkful of cherry pie.

“So, you’re…”

“Yes.”

“And you’re giving me advice?” said Steve.

“Hey there, Mr. Judgmental, I’m not the one with a homemade taser in his backpack.”

Steve blushed. “You looked.”

“Can’t blame a girl for being curious. What’s the taser for?”

“It’s for nothing, it was a gift.”

“Some gift. You use it on anyone yet?”

“Just myself. Once,” said Steve. “It, uh, hurt.”

Carol’s nose wrinkled. “Still wanna claim the high ground on advice-giving?”

“Maybe not,” Steve said sheepishly, and Carol wiggled her fingers at him in the universal gesture for ‘give’.

“Come on. ‘Fess up. What has a handsome young fella like yourself so terminally freaked that he’s on a Greyhound in the middle of the night with nought but a homemade taser? They didn’t try to send you to one of those gay deprogram camps, did they?”

“Am I that obvious?” said Steve, and at the widening smile on her face, sagged a bit. “Oh.”

“You are _easy_ , kid,” crowed Carol. “Easy! Please oh please don’t ever go to Los Angeles, you’ll be taking three dicks on video in a van before your first sunset, my God.”

“Alright, alright,” said Steve, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes sockets. “I admit it, I’m a mess. I’m going to see my ex… well..”

“You ex-boyfriend,” prompted Carol gently.

“Yeah, I guess? Except it’s really complicated, because he’s not gonna know I’m there.”

“What, you gonna Edward Cullen over him while he sleeps?” said Carol.

“Huh?”

“It’s from Twilight, Jesus, don’t you kids read anything nowadays? Anyway, what are you, a stalker? Don’t be creepy, wake him up.”

“I wish I could,” said Steve. “He’s in a… sort of a coma? Uh. He was in a car accident.”

Carol’s face was stricken. “God, that’s awful, kid. I’m so sorry.”

Steve looked down at his pie, working to get his face under control. After a few minutes, Carol reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. He didn’t stop her. 

 

 

 

 

“Pull over, I got the shawarma shits.”

“That’s not a thing, Barton.”

“Wanna find out?”

“Kee-rist,” muttered Tony, but pulled the van over to the side of the road.

“Holy fuck, there are a million and one stars out here,” announced Barton as he stepped out the back of the van, unzipping his jeans as he went. “Hey, I think I see Little Bear!”

The van doors thunked shut.

“First moment of peace in eighty miles, _thank you Bruce,”_ said Tony. “Now, who do I gotta fuck to get an ETA around here? I feel like I’ve been on 9 for a year.”

“You’re gonna be on this road for about ten more miles,” announced Scott Lang, who was reading the map with the help of a Jurassic Park-branded miner’s flashlight shaped like a velociraptor’s head. Every time he turned on the light, a tinny recording of a reptilian screech played from the speakers mounted over his ears.

“I can’t take you seriously when you’re wearing that thing on your head,” Tony complained.

“You take him seriously other times?” said Sam.

“No,” said Tony. “But it’d be nice to have the option.”

“So once we get to this quasi-military school,” said Bruce. “Do you think they’re just gonna let us in the gate?”

“A van full of unsupervised teenagers, I don’t see why not,” said Tony. “What is it, three in the morning.”

“Close, two-thirty,” said Scott Lang, checking his wristwatch, which lit up red and blue around the rim, emitting an R2-D2 whistle.

“Is there anything you own that _doesn’t_ make noise?” Tony asked.

“Are teenagers not trusted to travel in America?” Thor asked. “In Norway, many youths have apprentice jobs that they drive to in the evenings—”

“Dear God,” said Tony. “Please, someone find me a point of entry.”

“Got it,” said Peter Parker, looking over Scott Lang’s shoulder at the map. The two promptly got in a hissing argument.

“That won’t work!”

“Yes it will!”

“That’s not a road, it’s a river!”

“I know, just trust me!”  
“О, ради Бога,” muttered Natasha, stepping between the two boys and lifting the map out of their hands. Climbing to the front of the van, she squatted between driver’s and passenger’s seat and spread the map out, pointing to a spot a bit before the Junior Military Reserve Academy. “There. This is place we go into the school.”

Scott, Peter, Thor, Bruce and Sam all crowded around her shoulders.

“That’s a state park,” Peter Parker observed.

“Yes,” said Natasha.

“It won’t be open,” said Sam.

“No,” said Natasha.

“But state parks always have really shitty security,” said Scott Lang.

“Yes,” said Natasha.

“We won’t be noticed if we just park the van in the lot and walk from there,” said Bruce.

“No,” said Natasha.

“In Norway,” said Thor.

“THIS IS WHAT WE’RE DOING,” said Tony.

 

 

 

“So here’s what we’re doing,” Carol informed Steve as she dug her rhinestone-encrusted cell phone out of her bag. “I am going to give you my phone number, and in exchange, you are going to give me yours. And if I don’t hear from you in another three days, I will assume that you have fallen down a well and need some help, OK?”

“Uh,” said Steve sheepishly. “I kinda threw my phone in a river.”

Carol looked at him. After a measured beat, she spoke. “You’re really making some life decisions these last few days, huh?”

“I know what I have to do,” said Steve. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“Yeah,” said Carol. “It does. Tell you what,” she said. “I’m not even going to ask if you’re on Facebook. Instead, you’re going to give me one address where I can send you a picture postcard. You still believe in the mail? Good old-fashioned US Postal Service?”

Steve nodded mutely.

“OK then. I’ll mail you a postcard from Philly in a couple days. When you get it, if you feel like it, you can send me back a postcard explaining that you’re not dead and I can stop worrying. Capice?”

“OK,” said Steve. Carol gave him her phone, and he typed in his SHIELD Academy address. Even if they kicked him out after this, he didn’t think he could go home to Brooklyn. It just wasn’t the same.

“Good,” said Carol. “Now I’m gonna fall asleep on you. Wake me up when we get to Philly.”

 

 

  

“OK, so this is all terrible,” said Bruce. Around him in the parking lot, seven SHIELD students sat, clutching various small injuries. Clint had what appeared to be a busted nose. Sam and Scott both had twisted ankles. Tony was clutching his eye and refusing to let Natasha, who had a flashlight, pry his eyelid open to take a look. “Who knew the forest was so full of things that are trying to kill you?”

“I think it’s a spider bite,” said Peter Parker. “Guys, can spider bites look really weird?”

“They can if they’re a black widow,” said Scott. “Are you having numbness and tingling in your left arm?”

“It bit me on my ankle,” said Peter. “Should it still be my left arm?”

“Thabz hard attacks,” said Clint thickly, around a swelling nose. “Seriuzzly, Dony, what’s our blay?”

“Our play is—ouch! Leave it alone! Our play is to say fuck it, get back in the van, and wait till morning,” said Tony. “At least in the morning, we can see what the hell is tripping us—” (here, Sam and Scott both nodded), “Biting us—” (Peter winced), “Standing right in our path invisibly—” (Clint lifted his wadded and bloody t-shirt briefly from his nose), “or _waiting in the dark to stab us in the fucking eyes, **fucking ow, Natasha!”**_

Natasha made an annoyed noise. “Stop being a child and look at the bright light!”

“You hear how she talks to me?” Tony muttered, but allowed her to pull his lower eyelid down, revealing a bright pink scratch.

Bruce leaned over to look. “Tony, how did you manage to get a whole tree branch inside your eyelid?”

“Just talented that way,” said Tony. “Hey, has anyone seen Thor?”

Everyone sat up a bit straighter and looked around the darkened parking lot into the trees beyond.

 

 

  

“Thor?”

“Thor!”

“Thor!”

“Hey, Thor!”

“Thor, buddy, where are you?”

Flashlight beams bounced around the pitch-black forest like the opening of “E.T.”, intersecting and joggling as Tony, Sam, Scott, Peter, Natasha, Clint, and Bruce searched for any trace of their missing friend.

“How does someone so big just disappear?” complained Scott Lang, inspecting the tree branches above himself with his iPhone’s light.

“He probably isn’t up there,” Sam Wilson pointed out.

“I know, I’m just worried about bats.”

“You a weird little dude, you know that?”

“Thank you,” said Scott, sounding genuinely touched. “Hey, Tony, does Thor have any allergies, like to bees or something? Could he have gotten bitten by the same thing Peter did and like collapsed of anyphalactic shock?”

“A, that was a spider, and B, way to keep up the positive attitude, buddy,” said Tony, and that’s when the shouts of “Here!” “Over here!” began. Running was impossible in the densely brambled forest, but Tony bull-rushed his way through the underbrush to the spot where Bruce and Natasha were already laying on their bellies, aiming their flashlights down into a dripping, rocky hole. At the bottom, Thor was standing chest-deep in a pool of black water, looking dazed and a bit bloody, and swaying like he’d take a heavy concussion. Tony knew that feeling.

“Thor, buddy, give me your hand,” Tony said, pushing up his sleeve and dropping to his belly on the ground next to the pit. It was a strain to even brush Thor’s fingers with his own, and Thor was too woozy to grip properly; “Come on, guys,” said Tony. “Lower me in a bit.”

“Yeah, right, budge over, short stuff,” Sam Wilson said, nudging Tony over and rolling up his sleeves. “I know you like to be in charge of everything…”

“Don’t sass your team captain,” said Tony, but ceded space at the rim of the cavern.

“Hey, Thor,” said Sam. “Let’s get you outta there, okay?” It took three tries to get Thor to reach up, but once the dazed Norwegian brushed Sam’s hands, he was gripped firmly and pulled towards the rim. “Everyone, gimme a hand, this guy weighs a ton.”

“Jesus, he’s soaked,” said Peter. “How cold was that water, buddy?”

 “How cold you do you have to get to go into hypothermia?” wondered Scott Lang aloud.

“I don’t know,” said Bruce, “But the concussion would probably accelerate any brain damage.”

“Jesus, can we can it with the doomsaying?” said Tony. “Thor, buddy, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three,” said Thor, who was indeed shivering pretty hard. “Did anyone bring some spare pants?”

“I did,” said Bruce. “Hope you don’t mind purple.”

“I do not mind,” said Thor. “In Norway—”

“Thor’s fine, everybody,” announced Tony. “He’s going to be fine.”

 

 

 

Later that night, as the SHIELD students huddled close in the van around an upturned flashlight, Thor told them about his accident.

“I was not far behind you all,” he said, “When I fell into the well. The ground gave way beneath my feet, and I was struck badly. I do not know how long I slumbered, but I had a strange vision while I slept.”

“Yeah, you’re lucky you didn’t drown,” said Bruce. “We were all the way back to the van before we realized you weren’t there.”

“What was your vision?” said Clint. There was quiet for a moment, and he looked at Tony. “What, the man said he had a vision. No one else is curious?”  
“I’m curious,” said Peter.

“Yeah, me too,” said Scott Lang, dropping his chin into his cupped hands. “Come on, buddy. Tell me about your vision.”

“I saw truth,” said Thor. “And it was a rainbow, composed of many colors.”

“Oh boy,” said Tony. “Who gave Thor the good drugs and stop holding out on the group, please.”

“I have taken no drug,” said Thor. “I merely saw what the waters wanted me to see. Time, power, space, reality, mind and soul—these are all components of truth, but without each other, they are as beams of colored light. Together, their true beauty is revealed.”

“You’re sure he’s not hypothermic?” Sam muttered to Bruce.

“I’m sure,” said Bruce. “Thor, buddy, are you still seeing any colors, any traces of this vision?”

Thor shook his head. “No. It ceased when I left the well.” He looked around the van at the others. “I owe you all a debt for retreiving me. While it was beautiful to dream of such things, I do not think such visions are healthy.”

“I don’t think you’re in danger now, but I agree,” said Bruce. “It’s possible you may have encountered a hallucinogen when you fell into the well. Maybe a pocket of natural gas trapped underground that you disturbed when you fell, a fungus, some kind of spore…”

_“Acid,”_ Clint sang aloud under his breath.

“What is acid?” asked Natasha, and Tony narrowed his eyes at her across the van. He was _almost_ sure she was fucking with everyone, but not quite. _Almost_.

“Tomato, tomahto,” he said. “I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve had enough nature for one night. What say we all turn in, get some rack time?”

Yawns and general assent greeted the idea, and sleeping space was quickly ironed out and flashlights extinguished—which Tony was glad for, because everyone needed sleep. He wouldn’t, of course—he rarely did. He lay awake, listening to the thud of his heart in his own ears, until dawn.

 

 

 

“Thanks,” Steve said to the truck driver who’d picked him up outside Philly and gotten him almost all the way to Chester Phillips Academy. “You really helped a lot.”

“No problem,” said the driver. “You sure you know where you are?”

“I’ve got it from here,” said Steve. As the truck pulled away, he looked around the town he’d last seen over a year ago, as he jogged through it in formation with a hundred other sweating, chanting recruits. And Bucky. It looked pretty much the same—public high school, Dairy Queen not yet open this early in the morning, credit union. The morning fog lay heavy over the town, clouding the hills and bluing the distance. Steve hoisted his pack on his shoulder and began the walk out of town towards the Academy.

 

 

 

It was kind of hard to miss the SHIELD Academy van and parking lot full of sleepy teenagers on the way up the road. Steve walked up to the group with his backpack slung over one shoulder, ruefully noting how no one even seemed to hear him until he was practically standing on top of them. “Hey guys.”

Tony, hair standing up on one side, was stepping out of the van with a toohbrush sticking out of his mouth. “Has anyone seen my copy of—oh fuck.”

“Tony,” Steve said.

“Shteve,” said Tony, and spat out a glob of toothpaste. “Uh. Surprise?”

“Thank Christ,” said Barton. “I was not looking forward to going back through those woods.”

“What were you doing in the woods?” said Steve.

“We were going to break into your old school and find you,” said Scott Lang. “Because, uh, reasons,” he said, shrinking under Tony’s glare.

“Friend Steven, we were much concerned when you left,” said Thor.

“So you staged a rescue mission?” said Steve.

“Yep, total rescue mission, that’s what this is, you’re not mad?” said Tony.

Steve shrugged with one shoulder. “That kinda wore off by mile two hundred.”

“Yeah. Um. That’s. Yeah. Really good to hear.” Tony’s eyes were scanning Steve a mile a minute, like Steve’s face was written in very small print.

“I still need to see him. Uh. My friend,” Steve volunteered carefully.

“Yeah, of course. We, uh. We figured you might already be in there and having some trouble getting out. You know. Military schools being what they are.”

Steve decided to let that slide. “You brought a van, huh.”

“Stole a van, technically,” Tony said. “Though I prefer to go with ‘borrowed’.”

“I hot-wired it,” Scott Lang added.

“While I watched,” said Peter.

“I failed pretty much completely to stop them from doing it,” Sam said.

“Also there was a pretty sizeable detour slash navigational fuckup, did you know New Haven is mainly black?”

“Wow, Tony. Just wow.”

“What is fuckup?”

“It’s when you follow your boyfriend to Connecticut and then just stand there staring at him instead of—ow! What’d I say?” Clint rubbed his bicep, and Tony turned back to Steve.

“So, how were you planning on getting into this joint?”

Steve squinted into the sun that haloed Tony with a fierceness. “Hadn’t really gotten that far in the planning stage.”

“Well, we do have a van,” Tony said. “Could ram the gates.”

“Go right in the front door,” said Steve.

“…of the heavily guarded and vaguely paramilitary school full of heavily armed Republican teenagers?” said Bruce Banner. 

“Yeah, uh. What he said,” Scott Lang said. “I like living?”

“They’d probably use rubber bullets,” said Tony. “Probably.”

“I’ve been shot with a rubber bullet before,” said Sam evenly. “Hurt like the real thing.”

Everyone contemplated that for a moment. Then, Clint spoke with an air of profound resignation.

“We’re going back through that fucking forest, aren’t we.”

 

 

 

 

Two hours later, with three of the group helplessly entangled in a thick morass of greenbrier, Clint spoke again: “I want it on record that I hated this fucking forest the first time.”

“Duly noted,” Scott Lang said around a grimace. “Ow! Ow! Making it worse!”

Thor frowned at the green vine he held, pinched between two meaty fingers. “I cannot see another way to free you, friend. In Norway we do not have this stubborn and grasping plant.”

“Everyone, we’re going to Norway after this,” Scott Lang hollered. “It sounds nice! I like IKEA. Loganberries are good.”

“Screw loganberries, there’s raspberries right over here,” said Clint, shoulder-deep in a thick bramble.

“Oooh, raspberries,” said Scott. “Hurry up and free me, dude, those are my favorite.”

“I work with children,” Tony muttered, but followed the group to Clint’s bramble. “Why are we eating food we found on the ground?”

Steve gave him a rueful look, then nudged past Tony and reached shoulder-deep into the thicket of pale, hairy-looking canes. He rummaged around for a moment, then withdrew a fistful of berries, glowing red as cold-water tuna. He popped one in his mouth—Tony watched the berry disappear—and offered the fistful to Tony. “Want one?”

“Shit yes,” Tony muttered, suddenly dry-throated. He selected the reddest berry from Steve’s open palm, popped it in his mouth, watched as Steve’s eyes darkened in turn—and promptly spat the berry out.

“Holy shit there’s a THING living in there!”

“Well, lookit that,” said Clint conversationally, picking the remains of a half-chewed inchworm grub out of the mashed berry sprayed over his shirt. “You got the prize.”

“Well, it’s official. I officially hate nature,” said Tony, wiping his tongue on the hem of his t-shirt. “Even the stuff that’s supposed to rule sucks, it’s all just a bunch of smug hippie bullshit—”

Steve stuck another berry in Tony’s mouth while it was open.

Tony blinked. Chewed. Blinked again. “Son of a bitch.” He finished chewing, reached into the bramble, pulled out another fistful of berries and jammed them in his mouth.

The group applauded.

 

 

 

“So, how do you propose we get in?”

The group was lying on their bellies on the far side of a chain-link fence, looking into the manicured grounds of the Chester Phillips Academy. The chain-link fence was not particularly tall, and the ground they were laying on was not particularly steep; nor was the campus teeming with students. They were lying on their bellies because the group had collectively decided that it seemed like the cool thing to do.

“Well, are we even on the right side of campus?” Bruce asked reasonably. “Steve, which building is the infirmary?”

“It’s not any of these. That’s the library, that’s the administrative building, those two are classrooms, and that’s the gym over there. If you could draw a line straight through the library, you’d hit the infirmary on the other side of it.”

“Wait, is he even gonna be **in** the infirmary?” asked Tony. “This is just a school, can they even take **care** of coma patients?”

“Probably not,” said Steve, “Which is why we’re not going to the infirmary. We’re going to the administrative building. I want to find out where they moved him, and they won’t tell me because I’m not related to him. With any luck, it’s a fairly local hospital.”

“Wait, we’re all gonna bust in just to look for a record? Seems kinda like a one-man job,” said Scott Lang, jaw working furiously around a wad of Juicy Fruit.

“It is a one-man job,” said Steve. “Which is why I brought one man. Not that the backup isn’t appreciated,” he added to Tony. “I’m sure it’ll be good if we have to fight our way out.”

Tony looked sideways at Steve. “Are you sassing me right now? Cause I gotta say, it kinda feels like you’re sassing me right now.”

“I’d never dream of it,” said Steve.

“But seriously,” said Peter Parker, “What are the rest of us going to do?”

“I can keep a lookout,” said Clint.

“Oooh,” said Peter. “Me too. I can do that too.”

“I can jimmy whatever locks you need jimmied,” said Scott.

“I can move heavy obstacles, should we encounter any,” said Thor, doing some preliminary flexing.

“I can help dig for records,” said Sam.

“I can help you read his chart,” said Bruce. “I’m good at medical stuff.”

Natasha cracked her knuckles and nodded at Steve.

Everyone looked at Tony.

“….I brought a taser,” he said.

 

 

 

 

“I wish I’d brought my plasma cutter,” Tony said fifteen minutes later, as the group huddled around a locked door in the administrative office. Scott Lang, ear pressed to the lock assembly, was gently jiggling two long metal shims in the lock. “Are you sure you can’t just jolt it open?”

“Tony, I swear to God, you offer me that taser one more time I’mma jam it up your ass,” Lang responded. “Now, shut up so I can concentrate. Make yourself useful.”

Tony looked around. Everyone else was vaguely trying to look as though they were busy keeping watch. The administrative building was completely deserted, Sunday-quiet. Occasionally, the A/C would click on with a soft whirr. Tony hated the soft administrative Xerox-scent of this building—something about it went right up his ass. “Does this feel weird?” he asked Steve, who was standing next to him, ams folded. “Being back here like this?”

“Actually, this all seems kinda familiar,” said Steve, as outside, beyond the muffling carpets and brick, a chanting unit of cadets jogged past, the faint “Fweet” of a whistle signaling their commander’s presence.

“So how did you stand it?” Tony asked in an undertone to Steve. “All the marching, the gung-ho, the matching uniforms. You don’t seem like the kind of guy who’s all about getting in line.”

“Yeah, Tony? What kind of guy do I seem like?” said Steve, and just as Tony was about to open his mouth to say—well, he didn’t know what he was going to say—a sharp crunching sound came from the lock Lang was working on. The door swung open.

“Wow,” said Tony. “That is a school attendance office.”

“Some recognition wouldn’t suck,” said Lang. “I learned how to do that from YouTube.”

But Steve was already brushing past all of them, a purposeful bent to his stride as he moved to the first filing cabinet and yanked open the top drawer. “You,” he said, snapping his fingers at Bruce. “Take the second cabinet. You,” he said, pointing to Peter Parker. “Are you any good at computers?”

Peter shrugged. “Sort of, I guess?”

“See if you can guess the password to get onto the student records system.”

“Uhhh, Steve, I don’t think that’s gonna be necessary,” Bruce said, lifting a folder high. “I found him.”

Steve took the folder from Bruce; looked at the group huddled expectantly around his shoulders; sighed.

“Guess I’m not gonna get any privacy, am I?”

“Guys, guys, back off, give him some space,” said Tony, and everyone moved three to four steps away, where they tried to look vaguely interested in the office furniture. Steve opened the folder and began reading.

“Huh,” said Clint, staring at the ceiling. “They’ve got some water damage in here.”

 Everyone except Steve looked at the ceiling.

“They should really get after that,” said Sam. “They’ll get mold.”

“Hey, Scott, can you actually crawl through buildings in the ceiling tiles?” asked Peter.

“Glad you asked, Peter,” said Scott, “And it depends on what type of ceiling you’re talking about. Most drop ceilings, there’s only a few inches between the tiles and the bottom of the next floor, and that space is filled with bundles of wires and routers and ductwork, etc. But in one-story commercial buildings like department stores, those ceilings can be as far as six feet below the actual level of the roof, which gives you plenty of room to maneuver. But then we run into the real problem common to drop ceilings, which is weigh—”

“Found it,” said Steve.

“Oh thank Gods,” said Thor. “What have you found, Steven?”

“He was transferred to a hospital in…. Zemo, Delaware,” said Steve, flipping to the next page of a densely scribbled-upon file. “Under the guardianship of someone named Alexander Pierce. That’s not his dad.”

“Weird,” said Sam. “How far away is it?”

Siri’s voice made everyone jump. “Zemo, Delaware, is two hours away by fastest route.” Tony was holding his phone up in one hand, van keys in the other. “We ready to go?”

 

 

 

A few moments later, Clint spoke: “I want it on record that we’ve now been through this forest three times. _Three._ Three times.”

“Well, you could be back at SHIELD. What is it, one-thirty? What would you be doing right now?” said Tony, wading through a waist-high bramble.

“I’d be at lunch,” said Clint. “I like lunch. You’re shit at cheering people up, you know that?”

“Hey, someone else can be good at that,” said Tony. “I’ll settle for being good at Ultimate Frisbee—”

“And here I thought we were gonna make it to a whole hour without mentioning that,” said Sam, and Steve snorted.

“Who was that who made goal on you twice last week?” said Tony. “Oh, that’s right, still me.”

“If a Tony makes a goal in the forest and no one witnesses it, does it still get talked about?” Sam asked.

“Who made a goal?” said Thor. “Was there a game while I was trapped in the cave?”

“You were trapped in a cave, Thor?” said Steve.

“Yes!” said Thor with relish. “I fell in and was struck mightily. But I am mightier, and I merely dreamt while others might have drowned. My good friend Sam pulled me out! With friend Stark’s assistance,” Thor added, after a glance at Tony and Steve.

“That is… quite a story,” said Steve. “Was anyone else injured while you guys came to look for me?”

“OH WERE WE,” said Clint. “I broke my **nose** , we were almost kidnapped by hill people in Bucksnort, Peter got bitten by a radioactive poisonous shit-eating deathspider—”

“On second thought, I think it was just a regular spider,” said Peter.

“And Tony got stabbed in the _eye_ ,” Clint wound up triumphantly, slapping Steve on the back. “Face it, buddy. We almost died following you.”

Steve looked guilt-stricken. “Guys. I’m so sorry. I had no idea you would follow me. I wouldn’t have left so… suddenly. If I’d known.” He made eye contact with Tony, who flushed warm from collarbone to hairline. “You don’t have to go with me to Delaware. I’m sure you’re already in a lot of trouble as it is, and if you want to go back to SHIELD—”

“Are you _kidding_?!?”

“After **_Bucksnort_** _??!?!?”_

“Seriously, man. Uncool. We are a team. Leave no man behind.”

“I, too, do not wish to return to SHIELD without you, brother.”

“I already hot-wired a _van_ for you, man.”

“That’s right, he did,” said Tony. “And that makes all of us accomplices so, chop chop, everyone in the crime van.”

As the group piled in, Steve sidled up next to Tony. In an undertone, he said, “I really won’t blame you if you wanna get them back to campus. They shouldn’t be paying for my choice.”

“Yeah well, it wasn’t your choice,” said Tony lightly. “I followed you. They’re following me. Ergo, not your responsibility. No muss, no fuss. Hey, someone save me a seat!” He climbed into the van, leaving Steve to wonder why he still felt guilty.

 

 

 

 

“That doesn’t look like a hospital.”

Many faces appeared beside Sam’s, as everyone crowded up from the back of the van to peer up through the windshield at the dank grey building which squatted like a thundercloud atop a denuded hill on the outskirts of Zemo, Delaware.

“That looks like an armory,” said Tony.

“Why aren’t there any windows?” asked Peter.

“Because coma patients don’t care if it’s light,” said Bruce, and everyone turned to stare at him.

“Christ, and I thought _I_ was dark,” said Clint.

“Sorry, Steve,” said Bruce sheepishly.

“It’s all right,” said Steve. “Just because it’s grim doesn’t make it wrong. Now, how do we get in?”

“Service entrance, right over there,” said Scott Lang. “Did anyone think to bring a variety of carpet cleaner’s uniforms, maybe some equipment and ID badges?”

“What am I, made of money?” said Tony, and held up a hand. “No—don’t answer that. The answer is no, I didn’t bring any of that stuff. Who else has an idea?”

“We could ram the gates,” said Thor. “This van is mighty.”

“Only if you haven’t been underneath it,” said Scott. “I’m really surprised they transport kids in this thing.”

“ ** _We’re_** transporting **_us_** in this thing,” pointed out Sam. “If this thing is about to fall apart I think—you know what, on second thought, I’d rather not know,” he said, and Scott shrugged.

“Suit yourself.”

“OK, given that we aren’t going to impersonate a cleaning crew OR a medieval siege unit, what are our other options?” said Tony.

Natasha pointed. “Look.”

Everyone turned to crane.

“What’re we looking for, I don’t see anything,” said Tony. Then he saw the garbage truck backing up to a side loading dock. “Oh no. No no no no no. Tell me this plan of yours doesn’t involve hiding in garbage cans, I have already been through a _forest_ and—SHIT.”

Steve, unnoticed by all, had slipped out the back of the van and was sprinting up the hill, zigzagging as he went to take cover behind every sign and low wall the sparse territory could offer.

“Well, damnit,” Tony said, and then he was scrambling out of the van, Clint and Sam and Natasha and Thor and Bruce and Scott tumbling after him. Tony was fast, but Steve had incredible stamina, and his long limbs ate up the steep hillside like it was nothing. Even Thor was panting, hands scrabbling for hold on the slick grass as they all leaned into the incline. Ahead of them, Tony saw Steve conceal himself behind a cardboard compactor as the garbage men got out of the truck’s cab, stretching and chatting. After a brief moment’s contemplation of the sun, they went to the loading dock’s rolling metal door and opened it via remote control, heading into the dark interior of the building and shutting the door behind themselves. As the door slid back down, Steve took off running, leapt onto the loading dock, and, in a move Tony had only ever seen peformed by Indiana Jones, rolled underneath the descending door. Panting, he and the rest of the group arrived just as the last inches of the gap sealed.

“Shit!!!!”

“I say this with all due love and respect, Tony” said Scott Lang, who was bent over and breathing hard, “but your boyfriend is a pain in the ass.”

“You’re telling me,” said Tony.

“So what do we do now?” said Bruce.

Natasha pointed upwards. “Look.”

They all looked. Some three feet above the door, there was a rusty, folded fire escape that zigzagged up the side of the building. Scott Lang squinted at it. “Ah, shit.”

“It’s too tall for any of us to reach.”

“Does anyone see any milk crates?”

“Why would there be milk crates here?”

“Aren’t there always milk crates lying around whenever people need to get into places?”

 “In Norway—”

“We’re climbing on Thor,’ Tony announced. “Yep. That’s what we’re doing. Thor buddy, think you can hold one of us on your shoulders long enough for us to pull that fire ladder down?”

Thor puffed out his chest. “Of course.”

“Great, then let’s get moving. Natasha, you’re probably the lightest, would you do the honors?”

“Da,” said Natasha, already stretching and wiggling her fingers in preparation. Thor knelt on the loading dock.

“At the lady’s leisure.”

Natasha stepped up to Thor’s broad shoulders and drew a line with her fingers to the crest of each shoulder. Then, quick as a flash, she was standing and balancing on his back, graceful as a circus dancer; she reached up, found purchase on the rusty ladder rails, and pulled the entire clattering apparatus down to the level of the loading dock, stepping lightly from Thor’s shoulders to the ladder at the moment it landed. She wiped her hands with an expectant look at Tony. “Are we climbing or talking?” she said innocently.

“You know, for someone who just learned English, like, _yesterday_ , you have a smart mouth,” Tony informed her, before grabbing onto the rusty ladder and starting to climb to the roof, the rest of the crew following him like a chain of ants.

“You know, if this thing lets loose from the building, we’re gonna be in a world of hurt,” said Bruce as they climbed.

“Bruce Banner, always with the optimistic outlook,” Clint, climbing right behind him, announced.

“It’s not pessimism, just facts,” said Bruce. “The pessimism comes in your outlook on death.”

“Nietzschean! I like it!” said Scott, panting right behind Clint. “Hey guys, what are the odds there’s gonna be like a big drinks machine on the top of this building?

“I’d say low, kemo sabe,” said Tony. “Why, you thirsty?”

“No, just craving a Shasta,” said Scott.

“And you think there’s gonna be a Shasta machine, really specifically, on the roof of this creepy-ass mental institution?” said Sam. “Barton! I think I got your voice of optimism right here.”

“Thank you, Sam,” said Scott, sounding genuinely touched. “That means a lot.”

“Will you all,” said Natasha, panting, “Please, shut up.”

“ _Aye_ ,” seconded Thor, and that’s when they heard the unmistakeable sound of a very large panel of glass somewhere in the building shattering, followed by a faint alarm. Tony, about to surmount the top of the fire escape, sagged slightly.

“Just. _Jesus_. He couldn’t have waited until we were in the building.” With that, he hoisted himself over the edge of the roof’s ledge and jogged across the wide tar-paper expanse, heading to a small shack that stuck out of its center. Leaning on the handle, he muttered, “Please be an unlocked door, please be an unlocked door, please be an unlocked door—yay!” as it swung open beneath him. Heading down the darkened stairs within, Tony dug in his pockets for his cell phone. “Siri, launch flashlight app.” The white light illuminated a narrow staircase littered with cigarette butts and scratch-off tickets, then a door marked “Access to 4 th floor”. He pushed on it. Locked. Next to the hinge, a card reader showed one glowing red LED.Clattering down the stairs behind him, Scott and Clint jostled him to peer at it.

“What is that, a card reader?”

“Is it the swipey kind or the touchy kind?”

“If it’s the touchy kind I heard there’s a hack for that. I just need a really big magnet. Did anyone bring a really big magnet?”

“It’s the swipey kind,” Tony said as he felt very gently around the edges of the reader, looking for somewhere he could jam a metal shim, maybe get into the circuitry. He felt Scott’s breath puffing over his ear. Jesus, it was worse than eating bacon in front of a dog. “Lang, I swear to God, if I can’t get into this thing you will get first crack.”

“Not Clint and his really big magnet?” came Sam’s voice from somewhere on the stairs behind them.

“What are we waiting for?” came Natasha’s voice from behind him.

“Friend Tony has encountered a door,” said Thor. 

“Is it armed?” said Bruce.

“Everybody shut up,” said Tony, who was beginning to sweat. From beyond the door, he hears what sounded like someone throwing a shopping cart down an escalator. Steve, operating with his usual subtlety. He felt a light tap on his shoulder. Looked. Scott was holding out a folded scratch-off card, the metallic paint facing out.

“Try this.”

Tony took the card, set it into the card reader crease-first, and swiped. With a thudding sound, the lock opened.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Tony said, pushing the door open. “Nifty gimmick, Lang.”

“It’s based off the Beverly Hills Cop thing, you know, with the old foil chewing gum wrappers,” said Lang.

“Oh yeah, I love that scene,” said Clint. “Always wanted a chance to use it.”

“My cousin says he did once,” said Lang, “But he’s in jail right now, so I don’t know how good it works.”

They were standing in a long hallway, the only light coming from a window at the other end of the building. To each side, identical doors in rows, each with a small, dimly lit, greenish window. Tony looked in the first one. Empty. Ditto, the next. In the eerie hallway, the air seemed fetid and stale. Steve, unhelpfully, had stopped making crashing noises the second they got into the hallway, so there was no telling where he was in the building. Tony peeked in the next window. Nothing.

“You guys got anything over there?”

“Nothing yet,” said Clint, working his way down the other side of the hall. “Ah, wait, we got a live one here.”

The whole group crowded around the window. A very old man was laying in the bed, hooked up to monitors and wires, his covers smooth and undisturbed. Even comatose, the man wore a frown that suggested he very much disapproved of what was happening to him.

“Isn’t that guy a little old to be Steve’s ex?” asked Scott, and was promptly elbowed in the ribs by Bruce. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Friend, not ex, who said anything about an ex,” said Tony, glancing in the door at the old guy. “Too old for high school, let’s move on.”

“Are you serious right now?” said Scott, “Ow ow ow ow ow,” as Sam grasped him by the ear and gently lead him down the hallway. Tony ignored the hissed whispering behind him and kept checking doors: woman, woman, three empty rooms, old woman, old man, young boy, empty room, teenage girl. All were comatose; none looked like they’d had visitors in a long time. Which seemed… off, somehow. An old person could have no living relatives, sure. But a teenaged girl should have cards, pictures, lots of glittery posters reading “Team Taylor”. Stuff like that. Tony kept moving, kept listening for Steve, who’d gone ominously silent.

“Ahhh… Tony, I think I might have something here,” said Bruce, craning to peer in a window two doors down on the other side of the hallway. “Looks like the right age.”

Tony joined him at the window. The boy lying in the bed was their age; Steve’s age. Dark hair, a strong jaw, long limbs. He looked like he could have been an Ultimate Frisbee player, if he hadn’t been comatose. Tony looked at the greasy hair, the circles under the eyes. The boy looked like him, after three straight nights of engineering. He wondered if Steve had a type.

“Woah,” came a voice from over Tony’s shoulder. Scott Lang. “I wonder if Steve had a type.” 

Tony closed his eyes over the “Asshole, did we not just have this conversation?” from Clint and the “Seriously?” from Sam and the “Nice,” from Bruce.

“Is this the one we are looking for?” asked Thor. “He sleeps like all the others.”

“He does look to be the same age,” said Bruce.

“And he’s an athlete, or was,” said Clint.

“How do you know?” asked Bruce.

“Look at that muscle tone,” said Clint. “He has some, still. None of these other people do. He must have started out with a lot of it.”

“This must be the guy,” said Tony. “I’ll get started on this door. Someone go find Steve.”

“There he is,” said Natasha. Everyone turned to look. Steve, silhouetted in the light of the large windows at the end of the hall, was limping towards them. And he wasn’t alone. Clinging to Steve’s shoulder, half-stumbling and half dragging, was a gaunt boy with a ragged mop of hair concealing half his face and an even inkier set of circles under his eyes. “Everyone, meet Bucky Barnes.”

A half-sheepish chorus of hellos greeted him from all, except from Tony, who stood motionless in the center of the group, the folded scratch-off ticket slipping out of his fingers and fluttering, unnoticed, to the floor.

“Bucky Barnes,” he said tonelessly.

Steve looked at Tony oddly. “Yeah.”

“Bucky as in, James Buchanan? You that Bucky Barnes?”

The boy’s voice was a creak. “That’s right.”

Tony crossed the floor in two swift steps and hit Barnes—hard—in the face, following him to the floor and snatching up a handful of shirt to yank him around for another hit.

“Tony!”

“Jesus Christ—”

“The fuck??”

The shocked group leapt into action, grabbing Tony by the shoulders and wrists to pry him away from Barnes as Steve threw his body between the two.

“Tony, stop it!”

“What the fuck is the matter with you?”

“LET GO, Tony!”

“Friend Tony, quit this!”

 “Прекрати это дерьмо прямо сейчас!” Everyone froze and looked guiltily at Natasha. She pointed at Steve. “You. Get him back and away from Tony.”

Steve did as he was told, dragging Bucky away physically and placing himself between the injured boy and Tony, who continued to glare at Barnes.

“Why is Russian an extra scary language to get yelled at in?” asked Scott.

“You will shut up,” said Natasha to Scott imperiously. Then she pointed at Tony. “You will explain. Now, please.”

“You didn’t tell me,” said Tony.

Steve sagged, almost imperceptibly, but enough that the onlookers’ attention all swiveled to him.

“You _knew_ ,” said Tony, a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice. “You knew, and you didn’t fucking tell me.”

“I didn’t see the point in telling you,” said Steve.

“Didn’t see the—didn’t see the **_point?!”_   **Tony exploded.

“ ** _I_** don’t see the point!” said Scott. “Would someone please explain what the fuck just happened?”

“He killed my mom,” said Tony.

“He what?”

_“What?”_

“Tony—”

“It was an accident,” said Steve.

“You were in the car, weren’t you,” said Tony.

Steve stayed silent.

Tony chuckled, a mirthless little cackle. “I can’t believe I just figured this out. Twenty seconds, I’m slipping. _You_ were his passenger. Sealed record because you were a juvenile, a _comatose_ juvenile. I never figured it mattered because _he_ was the one who got behind the wheel high as shit, but now that I’ve got you here, why _did_ you let him drive like that? Did you just figure, nothing was gonna happen?”

“I didn’t know he was high.”

“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!” The words hung in the air for a while; just long enough for the loyalty in the room to rearrange itself to a subtly different configuration.

Steve looked at the group, at the expressions of horror and worry and concern. Most of the group were subtly shifting so their backs were arrayed around Tony, a phalanx of protection; Thor’s expression was darkening rapidly; even Clint was crossing his arms at Steve. Natasha was unreadable as always; only Sam was looking at Steve with something approaching compassion. Steve made a flash decision, the kind he was starting to suspect would be his life’s specialty. “Can you stand?” he asked Buck, whose right eye was swelling shut.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, “As long as you steer.”

Steve winced at the phrasing—thankfully, Tony was listening to Bruce’s muttered counsel, and didn’t seem to hear. Hoisting Bucky to his feet, Steve looked at the group. “Listen, you can leave and go back to SHIELD without me. But I’m taking him out of here. This isn’t the right place for him.”

“Yeah, too few bars and guards,” shot Tony.

“Be that as it may, we’re leaving,” said Steve.

“Where to?” The question came from Sam, whose tone gave nothing away.

“I haven’t decided yet,” said Steve.

“Still a planner, I see,” croaked Bucky.  

_“_ _Fuck you, Barnes,”_ said Tony, at the same time that Steve said, “Be quiet, Buck.” When violence did not immediately break out, Steve turned and began steering Bucky down the corridor towards the fire exit.

“If I see him again, I’ll kill him,” said Tony. “Fair warning.”

Steve paused. “And me?”

A brief silence. “I haven’t decided yet.”

Steve figured that was as good an answer as he was going to get.        

 

Peter Parker, driving the van, greeted them at the loading dock. “Wait, weren’t there more people before?”

“Drive,” Tony said shortly.

“Oooohkay,” said Peter. “Fair warning, I think this van might be going to explode.”

“Good,” said Tony, and didn’t say another word until they got back to SHIELD, where he didn’t have to say a word because he was too busy getting yelled at by Headmaster Fury. He went to his room. Looked around. His stuff was everywhere, like it’d always been; parts on every surface. The only sign Steve had ever been there was the rope, still looped around the bedframe. Tony looked at it for a long time, then toed off his shoes and collapsed into bed, losing consciousness before he had a chance to feel anything.    

 

 

Three days later, the note arrived.  

_Tony,_

_I’m glad you’re back at SHIELD. I don’t like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself. We all need family…_

**Author's Note:**

> "Someone You Didn't See Coming" was originally planned as a birthday gift for my erstwhile writing partner JenTheSweetie. Two years and six months later, I think we can conclusively call it late. But it's done, and I have her to thank. Thanks, Sweetie.


End file.
